MICHI WIANCKO
Violin, Composer
Michi Wiancko is a versatile and highly imaginative composer, violinist, and collaborator, whose multi-faceted creative projects and organizational work prioritize artistic discovery, as well as community resilience and social change.
Recent chamber music commissions include works for Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, Boston Chamber Music Society, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, Schubert Club, Accordo, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Anne Akiko Meyers, Ecstatic Music Festival, Aizuri Quartet, Parker Quartet, Friction Quartet, and the Jupiter Quartet, to name a few.
Michi’s first opera, Murasaki’s Moon, for which she was a 2018 recipient of an Opera America Commissioning Grant, premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May of 2019 and was commissioned by Met Live Arts, Onsite Opera, and American Lyric Theater. Since then, she has composed two more operas: Arkana Aquarium, commissioned by Experiments in Opera and premiered in 2021, and The Stream, commissioned by Baldwin Wallace and the Cleveland Lyric Theater, and premiered in 2022. Michi has also composed music for short and feature-length films, commercials, and for her own band, Kono Michi.
A passionate collaborator, Michi has been fortunate to work and tour with renowned artists from across a vast musical spectrum: Gabriela Lena Frank, Missy Mazzoli, PaviElle French, Vijay Iyer, Steve Reich, Jenn Wasner, Emily Wells, Laurie Anderson, Judd Greenstein, William Brittelle, Paula Matthusen, Kaoru Watanabe, Qasim Naqvi, Mark Dancigers, Satoshi Takeishi, Mazz Swift, Cristina Pato, Sandeep Das, Jessie Montgomery, Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Matt Berninger, Dolio the Sleuth, and Rench. A member of Silkroad and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, she has also performed with The Knights, A Far Cry, Mark Morris Dance Group, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, and International Contemporary Ensemble.
Described by Gramophone Magazine as an "alluring soloist with heightened expressive and violinistic gifts,” Michi gave her violin solo debuts with the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, performed her recital debut in Weill Hall, and released a solo album of new works on New Amsterdam called Planetary Candidate, as well as an album of the complete violin solo works of Émile Sauret on Naxos. She has recorded collaborative projects for Nonesuch Records and Tzadik Records.
A native of California, Michi holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Juilliard, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and the late Robert Mann, respectively. Her early teachers include Sharon Holland and Haroutune Bedelian. In addition to her composition and performing career, Michi is director and curator of Antenna Cloud Farm, a music festival, arts retreat, and community organization based in western Massachusetts. She also founded The Experimental Institute, a summer intensive for talented performers that centers creative artistry and liberatory practice.