Michael Wu, Director of Music

Michael Wu serves at Faith UMC as Director of Music.  He holds degrees in Organ Performance and Church Music from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore, Maryland, and Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.  Before coming to Faith, Michael served as Director of Music and Organist at Grace UMC, Gaithersburg, where he directed multiple choirs of adults, youth, children, and bells.  He has composed original music for vocal choirs, bell choirs, and solo voices, and has arranged hymns for brass, organ, choir and congregation.

Michael’s primary work has been at Landon School since 1994.  He teaches choral music to grades 6-8; he teaches choral and general music to grades 3-5.  He has completed three of the four levels of OAKE Kodaly Music Education Certification at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey.   Two of the six school choirs under his instruction have been invited by audition to participate in the National Youth Choir Festival at Carnegie Hall in 2002, 2005 and 2008.  The choirs have hosted other choral ensembles and worked with notable musicians, including Maestro Leonard Slatkin of the National Symphony Orchestra; the American BoyChoir, and the Land of Lakes Choirboys.

Beyond Landon, Michael serves as Conductor of the Bel Canto Chorus of the Children's Chorus of Washington (CCW), founded and led by Artistic Director Joan Gregoryk. The ensemble, in its third year, represents the middle level of CCW (more information at http://www.childrenschorus.com), and it includes over 40 students ranging from grades 5 to 10. Bel Canto Chorus completed a tour of New York City in March 2007 and it was the featured children's choir in John Rutter's Mass of the Children, conducted by the composer as part of the Rock Creek Music Festival in June 2007.  The group has collaborated with the Thomas Circle Singers, the Columbia Union College Orchestra, and presented a concert with the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus in Chicago. 

This native Washingtonian has toured with American choirs and given organ recitals throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, including Old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Baltimore, Maryland; Christ Church Cathedral, Lexington, Kentucky; St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.