![michae_wu copy [800x600].jpg](images/stories/church/staff/michae_wu%20copy%20%5B800x600%5D.jpg "michae_wu copy [800x600].jpg") Michael Wu has been at Grace since 1997. He directs the Chancel Choir, Children’s Choir, and Youth Choir; oversees a music ministry that includes Assistant Organist Betsy Moore, Music Coordinator Ellen Stanley, Handbell Director Erin Cooper, and volunteer leaders of Caroling Angels, Folk Choir, Carillon Ringers, and instrumentalists. He has composed original music for vocal choirs, bell choirs, and solo voices, and has arranged hymns for brass, organ, choir and congregation. He has also brought The M Street Brass Quintet to Grace. This professional ensemble adds to church services at Christmas Eve, Easter, and Pentecost; they also created an annual benefit concert in July that has raised thousands of dollars for the Muscular Dystrophy Association among other church charities.
Beyond Grace, 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 second 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 sang with the Thomas Circle Singers in December; they host the Mankato Children's Chorus of Minnesota in April (http://www.mankatochildrenschorus.org/index.html); they sing with the Columbia Union College Orchestra in April, and they present a concert with the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus in Chicago (http://www.gechildrenschorus.org) in May, finishing their season with a concert 4 p.m. Sunday, May 11, at National Presbyterian Church in Northwest Washington, DC.
Michael’s full time work is at Landon School, a private, non-sectarian boys’ day school in Bethesda Maryland. In his 14th year at Landon, he teaches music to six choral ensembles of boys in grades 3-8, and he currently serves as Director of Middle School Life. Two of his choirs have been invited by audition to participate in the National Youth Choir Festival at Carnegie Hall in 2002, 2005, and again this year. 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.
Michael holds degrees in Organ Performance and Church Music from the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, Maryland, and from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He has completed the first and second level of OAKE Kodaly Certification (http://www.oake.org) at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey. 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. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association and Chorus America.
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