Keila Wakao

Keila Wakao was awarded the 1st prize and the Junior Composer Award in the 2021 Menuhin International Violin Competition. She was also the 1st prize winner of the Stulberg International String Competition and was awarded the Bach Prize in 2021. Most recently, she was awarded the Aoyama Music Foundation Award in Japan for upcoming artists and was a recipient of Charlotte White's Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant.

Born in 2006, 17-year-old Keila Wakao is from Boston, MA, and began playing the violin at the age of 3. At age 6, the late Mr. Joseph Silverstein accepted Keila as a student. Currently, she is a high school student at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts and studies with Donald Weilerstein and Soovin Kim at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School.

Keila has performed solos and recitals throughout the United States, Japan, Germany, Singapore and the United Kingdom in venues such as Cadogan Hall (London), Victoria Concert Hall (Singapore), Jordan Hall (Boston), and Carnegie Weill Recital Hall (New York City).

At age 9, Keila gave her first solo performance with an orchestra, and since then, she has performed with orchestras including Reading, Eugene, Chattanooga, Adelphi, Kalamazoo, Resound Collective, Baden-Baden, Baltimore Chamber, Boston Civic and Lexington Symphony Orchestras.

In 2017, Keila was invited to speak and perform at TEDxBoston, and during the summers of 2018 to 2022, she participated in the Perlman Music Program.

Keila plays on a 1745 G.B Guadagnini on generous loan from the Florian Leonhard Fellowship.