A native of Taiwan, Mann-Wen Lo has been playing the violin since the age of five. She made her orchestral debut performing Mozart’s violin concerto No. 2 at age eleven at the National Concert Hall in Taipei. She has been awarded first place in the 3rd Concerto Competition of Academy of Taiwan Strings, Taipei Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition; Second place in Toyama Asian Youth Music Competition in Hong Kong and scholarship from Taiwan Council for Cultural Affairs.
Mann-Wen has been featured on radio stations such as NPR’s From the Top and WGBH. She has collaborated in chamber music concerts with artists such as Ettore Causa, David Shifrin, Julie Eskar, Frank Morelli, William Purvis, Wei-Yi Yang and Hye-Sun Paik. Her chamber music mentors include members of the Tokyo String Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet Juilliard String Quartet and Takacs String Quartet. She has also studied chamber music with artists such as Peter Frankl, Ettore Causa, Daniel Phillips, Kim Kashkashian and Lucy Chapman. Mann-Wen’s festival appearance includes Gstaad String Academy of Menuhin Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Franco-American Chamber Music Festival, Saito Kinen Festival Seiji Ozawa’s Young Musician Study Group, New York String Orchestra Seminar and Orford Arts Academy.
Aside from classical music, Mann-Wen has also performed Jazz and Bluegrass. She has performed with Grammy Award winning banjo player Bela Fleck. She is currently a member of the Kaleidoscope Trio, which is an innovated group consist of violin, clarinet and guitar. The group plays a variety of music from classical to Jazz and was recently awarded honorable mention at the Beverly Hills National Audition.
Mann-Wen received her Bachelor of music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and her Master of Music Degree from the Yale School of Music. Her principal teachers include Masuko Ushioda and Syoko Aki. She has recently earned her Graduate Certificate from USC Thornton School of Music, and is going to continue as a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate under the tutelage of Glenn Dicterow. Mann-Wen plays on a 1925 Giuseppe Fiorini violin on generous loan from the Chi Mei Culture Foundation in Taiwan.