Toledo Symphony

After joining the Toledo Symphony in September 2000, Merwin Siu has plunged gleefully into all aspects of Toledo’s musical soundscape. After spending five seasons as the TSO’s Associate Principal Second violinist, Merwin assumed the role of Acting Principal Second in 2005, and won an international audition to become Principal Second at the beginning of the 2006-07 season.

Merwin’s numerous solo appearances with the TSO have ranged from performances of the Great Masters on their Mostly Mozart series to appearances on the Orchestra’s Pops, Family, Young Peoples, and Chamber series. Recent highlights include TSO premieres of Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, Keith Jarrett’s Elegy for violin and strings, and John Corigliano’s Red Violin Chaconne. In March of 2007, Merwin appeared with former TSO music director Andrew Massey, premiering Massey's new violin concerto, Another Spring, in Racine, Wisconsin. He makes his Classics Series debut in February of 2008, performing Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre.

An active presenter and performer of recitals and concert events, Merwin has appeared as a guest soloist with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra in downtown Cleveland’s State Theatre, and has been featured on performing arts series in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. He has performed on the Toledo Museum of Art’s It’s Friday! Series, on CBS’s AM Saturday show, and is a frequent guest on WGTE’s Live on FM 91 radio series. A chamber music devotee, Merwin has performed with violinists Leila Josefowicz and Karen Gomyo, pianists Arnaldo Cohen and William Wolfram, hornist William VerMeulen, the Kronos Quartet, the Florestan Trio, and members of the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Currently, Merwin is a violinist in the Odyssey String Quartet and the Zin String Quartet, both comprised of Toledo Symphony musicians. He has also appeared with the Old West End Baroque Ensemble and the New Renaissance Players.

Since 2003, Merwin has served as the Toledo Symphony’s Artistic Administrator, coordinating artistic input from conductors, musicians, and audiences for subscription series concerts, outreach appearances, and educational performances alike. He initiated the Artists Up Close series, where guest soloists perform with members of the Orchestra in an intimate, chamber music setting. The Series was featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article concerning innovative orchestral programming.

Increasingly recognized as a narrator and public speaker, Merwin regularly interacts with audience members on numerous TSO series, as well as presenting pre-concert lectures and discussions. In February 2007, he made his debut as a guest narrator, presenting and directing a Harry Potter Meets the Symphony concert for the New Mexico Symphony, an expanded version of a hugely successful Toledo Symphony presentation. He will return to the New Mexico Symphony to narrate and direct their Halloween concert in 2008.

In addition to his Symphony positions, Merwin is the founder and director of Project Aeolus, Toledo’s newest voice for contemporary music and performance art. The fourth Aeolus Festival was held in the first week of June 2005, with MacArthur Award winning composer Bright Sheng as the guest of honor. The Festival has performed over a dozen world premieres, utilized hundreds of area performers, attracted thousands of audience members and drawn in guest artists from throughout the United States. The Festival was nominated for a Best Practices Award from the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments.

An enthusiastic teacher, Merwin’s private studio includes many prize-winners of regional competitions. He is frequently asked to serve as an adjudicator for regional and statewide events. His commitment to music education has led to workshops at numerous Toledo Public Schools, music appreciation classes at the East Side Boys and Girls Club, and lessons and coachings with students at Earlham College. In 2002-3, Merwin served as a lecturer in violin and chamber music at the University of Toledo, where he was a member of the Toledo Trio.

Merwin also serves on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Orchestra Forum Planning Committee, setting initiatives and determining objectives for the country’s largest private source of orchestra funding. He is a recipient of the Toledo Business Journal’s 20 Under 40 award in 2004, recognizing young leaders in Lucas County, and along with friend and colleague Ellen Craig Archambeau, won the Toledo Blade’s Corporate Spelling Bee in 2005. He was one of many Toledo-area artists who participated in Artomatic 419, helping to curate and direct the Performing Arts component of the inaugural 2006 Festival.

Merwin holds a Masters in Music from Indiana University and degrees in English and Music from Montreal’s McGill University. An avid reader and hockey fan, he lives in Toledo’s Old West End.

Merwin wrote this biography all by himself, in the third person.