Zen Wu [she/her] is a soprano from the San Francisco Bay. Trained as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist in a wide range of genres, she collaborates on a variety of projects from the opera and concert stages to chamber music and movie soundtracks. Wu performs and records as a soloist and guest musician with many groups including the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, San Diego Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Musica Sacra, Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine, La Jolla Symphony, the Apple Hill String Quartet, S.E.M. Ensemble, Ensemble Ipse, and Ghostlight Chorus.

She began her music studies in piano and violin before joining the Crystal Children’s Choir at the age of 6, with which she sang for twelve years, performing at choral festivals and conferences across Asia, Australia, North America, and Europe throughout her childhood and adolescence. She studied biochemistry and began her formal studies in classical voice at the University of California San Diego, where she was immersed in contemporary and experimental performance in addition to her training in traditional bel canto repertoire and technique.

Wu is lauded for her interpretations of canon works as well as her fearless championing of 20th century and new music. She spent two seasons singing with the San Diego Opera before making her professional mainstage debut as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi and moving to New York, where she is currently based as a freelance classical artist. She made her debut in Italy as Suor Angelica and has continued to sing many repertory mainstays across the United States and Europe while taking on contemporary operas and various chamber music and choral projects. Wu began directing sacred vocal music in 2020 and now specializes in both contemporary and sacred repertoire as a staff soprano at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Her 2025-26 season features a premier of selections from Bevin Kelley’s electroacoustic opera The Call of Cthulhu with the Apple Hill String Quartet, Dixit Dominus and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Taghkanic Chorale, and a historic restaging of Michael Gordon’s What to wear at the PROTOTYPE Festival. Other recent solo engagements include Florence Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight with the Dessoff Choirs, the Czech premier of Luigi Nono’s Prometeo and the New York premier of Max Duykers’ Both Eyes Open. She reprised her role as Catherine Matsumoto in Both Eyes Open with “electrifying radiance” in February 2025 in Berkeley, California, singing librettist Philip Kan Gotanda’s story of a young Japanese-American family interned by the American government during World War II.

Wu joined the faculty of the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in 2025 and maintains a private studio in New York. She studied jazz and holds a degree in political science from Columbia University and writes extensively on the intersections of human rights, politics, performance art, race, and ethics in her spare time. Wu will make her solo debut at Carnegie Hall in 2026 singing the Fauré Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York.

full bio/discography/CV available by request