ABOUT ME

GENE WIE enjoys an international career as a conductor, performer, and educator. With over twenty years of experience as a K-12 teacher, he directs the Orchestra Program at Choate Rosemary Hall, an elite private boarding school in Connecticut, USA, where he conducts the Symphony, Chamber, and Concert orchestras, coaches chamber music, and teaches music history. Joining the faculty amidst the challenges of the worldwide pandemic, he tapped into his background in computer science and music to create innovative tools for ensemble education and address contemporary issues in diversity and representation in classical music.

A lifelong participant in non-profit community organizations, Gene currently serves as Concertmaster of the New Haven Chamber Orchestra which supports K-12 public school music programs in New Haven, CT, and volunteers as a music and technology expert helping students in local Title I schools. He co-directs a major Summer Music Festival with his wife Chika, where they have presented innovative summer music experiences for young musicians for over a decade. In March 2022 he organized and conducted the Violins of Hope Concert in Santa Ana, California, bringing to life in concert the works of composers almost lost to the Holocaust.

From 2005-2020, Gene served as Music Director of the Community Youth Orchestra of Southern California, which involved over one-hundred and sixty students each season in three level-differentiated orchestral ensembles, and presented opportunities for Pre/K-12 and college students in early childhood music education, community service, and exciting performances throughout the local community. He previously taught as a faculty member at St. Margaret's Episcopal School, University High School (Irvine), Morasha Jewish Day School, and the Orange County School of the Arts. His professional work included a wide range of performances on violin, viola, clarinet, and saxophone in the Los Angeles and Orange County "freeway philharmonic" scene, including session work for independent recording studios, video games, modern dance, and chamber music.

Gene's musical mentors include William Fitzpatrick, Yoko Matsuda, Haroutune Bedelian, William R. Kennedy, Robert Becker, Peter Marsh, Nina Scolnik, Margaret Parkins, Stephen Tucker, Amanda Walker, and Dorea Tate. He earned MFA Music and BS Information and Computer Science degrees from the University of California at Irvine. He is a member of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 400, the Connecticut Music Educators Association (CMEA), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and the American String Teachers Association (ASTA).