Biography

Laureate of the prestigious 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition, Taiwanese violinist William Wei is quickly building an international career as a soloist. Of his performance of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto with Marin Alsop and the National Orchestra of Belgium, Le Soir wrote that William “[gets] everyone’s attention in the first movement, [expresses] all the possibilities in the second movement, and burns all his passion and freedom in the music till the end;” Radio Télévision Belge Francophone simply called his playing “superb”. With inherent musicality, liberated virtuosity, refined sensibility, and shimmering dynamism, he has been expressing his unique voice to the world.

Highlights in season 2023/24 include his debut in Germany with Niederrheinische Sinfoniker and Shao-Chia Lü with Saint-Saëns’ third violin concerto; the tour was highly acclaimed by the Westdeutsche Zeitung, who described William as “proved to be a virtuoso, but a special and sensitive interpreter at the same time;” the grand finale of Weiwuying International Music Festival with Wen-Pin Chien and Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra with Sibelius’s violin concerto, a last-minute step-in concert with Eliahu Inbal and Taipei Symphony Orchestra with Prokofiev’s first violin concerto. In September 2023 he will embark on a tour around Taiwan with Taiwan Connection, performing in chamber and orchestral concerts. In October, he will make his debut with the London Philharmonic under the baton of Edward Gardner performing Sibelius and Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 3 and Tchaikovsky violin concerto with Eiji Oue and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.

A promising star of the rising generation, in the previous seasons William has appeared as a soloist on multiple occasions, performing with such orchestras as the Belgium National Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Baden-Baden Philharmonic, Sejong Soloists, Taiwan Philharmonic (National Symphony Orchestra), Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Boston Longwood Symphony, and Mainzer Virtuosi. He has also been seen in the most renowned venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kaufman Music Center, Jordan Hall, The Henry Le Boeuf Hall in Brussels, Gasteig Concert Hall in Munich, Seoul Arts Center, Cremona Stradivari Museum (Museo del Violino), Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and Weiwuying Concert Hall. As a guest artist he has received invitations from the 4string Festival in New Jersey, Incheon Music Festival in Korea, Green Mountain Music Festival in Vermont, and the Casalmaggiore Music Festival in Italy, Kitakyushu Japan, Klangfarben, and in his home town the Taiwan Connection, Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA) and Weiwuying International Music Festival.

William has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Eliahu Inbal, Gilbert Varga, Marin Alsop, Gil Shaham, Ray Chen, Nai-Yuan Hu, Cho-Liang Lin, Pei-Yao Wang, Orion Weiss, Sung-Won Yang, Brian Suits, and Ronald Feldman. As a resident artist at Cornell University, he toured Korea in the 2017/18 season with pianists Vikingur Ólafsson and Jörg Widmann. William has also appeared in the WQXR broadcast series under the invitation of director and leading music critic Robert Sherman.

In 2022, William released his debut album Recuerdo, a compilation of his life experience and compassion for music. The album is a co-production with pianist Jonathan Feldman and Lezcek Wojcik, principal recording master of the Carnegie Hall.

William Wei captured international attention in 2013 as a gold medallist at the Thomas & Evon Cooper International Competition in Ohio and was awarded Laureate Distinction at the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition in 2015. In 2018, he received the Salon de Virtuosi career grant with great honor.

Born in Tainan, Taiwan in 1994, William started his violin studies under the tutelage of Chia-Miao Chung, Shu-Lan Hsu, Meng-Ping Wu, and Yu-Wen Chen, during which time he received lessons from Nai-Yuan Hu. Wei received his Bachalor’s at the Juilliard School as a proud recipient of  Jerome L. Greene Foundation Scholarship under Prof. Hyo Kang and Prof. I-Hao Lee. And WIlliam completed his degree at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin under Kolja Blacher, former concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic. William plays on a Stradivari, 1722 ex “Joachim-Elman,” kindly loaned to him by the Chimei Foundation in Taiwan.