Henry Wu (b.2001) (he/him) is a percussionist based in Calgary, Canada. Henry was born in China and started learning snare drum at the age of 10. At 13, Henry joined the CNU High School Wind Ensemble, one of the leading high school wind ensembles in the country, as a percussionist, significantly impacting his love for music. Henry moved to Canada after graduating junior high from CNU High School and decided to pursue a music career.

             

              As a percussionist, Henry is not limited to one particular percussion instrument. He is experienced with a full range of percussion instruments. In his recitals, he performed works including solo marimba, marimba concerto, multiple percussion, solo snare drum, solo timpani, solo xylophone and solo vibraphone.

 

 Henry has performed with many ensembles for audiences both in Canada and China, including the Ammolite Opera, Calgary Youth Orchestra, Calgary Wind Symphony, Orchestra Academia China, and the Beijing Wind Orchestra. Performing various musical works such as opera, orchestral, and world music styles, including samba, salsa, and traditional Chinese music, made him a well-rounded musician.

 

Henry is also part of the H2 Percussion Duo, with his colleague Ernest Flancia, who performed at the 2023 Sound Atlas Music Festival as student artists, the pop-up performance of 2023 ASCENDING - Kevin Chen in Concert student artists, as well as the promotion for 2023 Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra promotion artists.

 

              As a soloist, Henry was the Best Overall Bach prize winner of the first annual UCalgary Music Undergraduate Society Bach Competition, first prize winner of 2023 Alberta Day of Percussion solo competition, a semi-finalist in the 2022 and 2023 Marimbafest Open Class solo marimba competition. Henry’s repertoire includes various genres, from classical to contemporary, including music composed by J.S Bach, Keiko Abe, Robert Oetomo, Pius Cheung, Evelyn Glennie, Ivan Trevino, Astor Piazzolla and Eric Sammut, Emmanuel Sejourne and Marc Mellits. He is keen to learn more styles of music and is always trying to find his unique sound as a musician.

 

              Transposing classical music from the baroque, classical and romantic eras on newer instruments, like one of his favourite instruments, the marimba, motivates Henry the most. He finds it inspiring to give the classical tunes a new sound. He loves playing and arranging cello, violin and piano repertoire on keyboard percussion instruments.

 

Henry obtained his Bachelor of Music degree from University of Calgary and is currently a Master of Music in Percussion Performance student at McGill University, where he received the Schulich Scholarship, under the instruction of Fabrice Marandola, Kristie Ibrahim, Alexandre Lavoie and Shawn Mativetsky. Henry has also received mentorship from world-class percussionists such as Kana Omori, Robert Oetomo, Dr. Matthew Lau, Mark Adam, Adam Tan, and Ivan Trevino.