AGO President John Walker (center) recently visited the organ department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He met with Professor Lei Zhu, department chairperson (to Walker’s left), Professor Dan Wu, organ teacher (to Walker’s right), and many students.
It is so great to see my dear friend Lei Zhu leading the organ department at Shanghai Conservatory of Music!
He came to study in the studio of McNeil Robinson at the Manhattan School of Music in 2011-2013 while I was completing my DMA course work there at the MSM with Prof. Robinson.
Those were truly great times!
Dear Kalle,
Thank you so much for the web post about your friendship with Lei Zhu during your mutual studies with McNeil Robinson. I am delighted to report that Prof. Zhu is enjoying great professional success as Chairman of Modern Instruments at the Shanghai Conservatory. In that role he has implemented a performance major in Electone, thereafter expanding it to digital organ and ultimately to the pipe organ. More than 20 organ students attended my classes last May, and 13 of them played for me. Prof. Zhu is presently preparing to submit a petition to form a Shanghai Chapter of the AGO. You and he, as former students of McNeil, will thereby in the same year have extended the global reach of the AGO into two new countries, Finland and China! This is good cause for celebration!
With best wishes to you,
John Walker, FAGO