{"id":148246,"date":"2026-03-25T17:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/148246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T17:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:53:15","slug":"pittsburgh-symphony-plays-world-premiere-by-local-teenage-composer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/148246\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Symphony Plays World Premiere by Local Teenage Composer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Composer Ethan Hsu speaks with conductor Jacob Joyce at the Pittsburgh Symphony\u2019s performance of the 17-year-old composer\u2019s work at a Schooltime concert. Photo source: Pittsburgh Symphony Instagram, J Milteer photography.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s (3\/23) Kidsburgh<\/a>\u00a0(Pittsburgh), Kristine Sorenson writes, \u201cElementary and middle school students got to hear a world premiere by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on March 20, and the composer wasn\u2019t much older than them. The PSO had put out a call for compositions from people living in Pennsylvania. Out of more than 100 works submitted, 17-year-old Ethan Hsu\u2019s piece was selected. Ethan is from Philadelphia. He came to Pittsburgh to watch along with thousands of students from around our region. \u2018I first started composing when I was around 10 or 11 years old. So really, I was actually about your age when I started,\u2019 Hsu told the audience. \u2018There are a lot of musical inspirations for me, especially the work of J.S. Bach and Beethoven,\u2019 he explained\u2026. \u2018I play piano and cello \u2026 I also watch a lot of YouTube, so I saw a lot of music videos that got me into composing.\u2019 PSO conductor Jacob Joyce praised Hsu\u2019s piece and was glad the young composer could enjoy it in Pittsburgh\u2026. Hsu currently plays with his high school orchestra, is a co-director of the Pitt Orchestra and is also in a pre-college program with the Juilliard School.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Composer Ethan Hsu speaks with conductor Jacob Joyce at the Pittsburgh Symphony\u2019s performance of the 17-year-old composer\u2019s work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[29964,73,75,74,29966,3315,67554],"class_list":["post-148246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-composers","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-repertoire","tag-students","tag-youth-orchestras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}