Julin Cheung, a 17-year-old student from Seattle, has joined Canada’s Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Photo by the Canadian Press/Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
In Monday’s (7/16) Globe and Mail (Toronto), Nono Shen writes, “Flute and piccolo player Julin Cheung stood behind a beige velvet curtain as he prepared to audition for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra…. The jury on the other side of the curtain didn’t know he was still a high school student. It was only after the last of three blind auditions over two days that the orchestra’s music director, Otto Tausk, knew they had their new hire—and the curtain was drawn back, revealing Cheung to be a 17-year-old. He’s set to become the orchestra’s new assistant principal flute and piccolo player, and its youngest ever member. Angela Elster, president and CEO of the orchestra, recalled Tausk coming to see her after the final audition…. ‘He said, not only have we found someone, but he’s only 17 years old, and he still has to finish high school.’ Cheung, who is from Seattle and attends the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, will finish Grade 12 there first before officially joining the orchestra as an 18-year-old next April…. He started playing the flute at six, joined the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra when he was nine, and was the Curtis Institute of Music’s youngest student when he was accepted at 13.”
