Joshua Hong, 17, began studying the violin with Shuwei Liu in 1996. He switched to Joyce Osborn in 2003, and to Maurice Sklar in 2007, his current teacher. His many accomplishments on the violin include the following: was recently chosen as a Young Artist Guild Member, which is the highest achievement of the Certificate of Merit program of Music Teachers’ Association of CA; first place winner at the MTAC Branch level as a violin soloist in the VOCE (Vocal, Orchestral, and Chamber Ensembles) competition for 2004 and 2005; was violin soloist on CWOTO concerts Opus 11, 16, and 17; in 2005 his string quartet won second place at the State Finals of the prestigious MTAC VOCE Competition; and the quartet was a first place winner in the International Young Artists Peninsula Music Festival in Palos Verdes in 2005. He won first place in the Complete Works program of the Southern CA Jr. Bach Festival for Strings in October 2006. In 2006 he was selected as a Discovery Artist with the New West Symphony and will perform with the symphony in 2008. For the last two years he has performed on the Ventura Music Festival Rising Stars Program and the recent New West Discovery Artists program. He has also received many scholarships for his musical endeavors from the Leni FeBland Foundation.

     Since 1998, Josh has played violin in the Conejo Valley Youth Orchestras and is presently concertmaster. He performed as violin soloist with the orchestra on their 2007 Spring Gala Concert at Kavli Theater, Thousand Oaks. His summer musical training has included the Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival, Marrowstone Summer Music Festival, the Midwest Young Artists program, Encore School for Strings, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Music Institute in memory of Jascha Heifetz. In September 2005, he became a member of the American Youth Symphony. He has performed in the Jascha Heifetz Society’s Master Class series with renowned violinists Ruggiero Ricci and Nai-Yuan Hu. He has played for Tamara Chernyak, Mitchell Newman, and Alexander Treger of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, William Preucil and Stephen Rose of the Cleveland Orchestra, Joel Smirnoff of the Juilliard String Quartet, Shuti Huang, Gerardo Ribeiro, Sherry Kloss, Dennis Kim, and Lewis Kaplan.

     Joshua is a senior at Crossroads School. He has played piano for 11 years and is currently a piano student of Edward Francis. He has performed as a piano soloist with the Conejo Concerto Orchestra and the Ventura College Orchestra.