We hear that Mariko Wyrick has won the cello vacancy in the hotly competed Metropolitan Opera Orchestra auditions after three rounds behind the screen.
Mariko, from California, plays with her sister in the American Ballet Orchestra.
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Mariko and her sister play together in the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Mariko is the only Wyrick in the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra.
OK, I’m confused. They both play (or played) in the SF Ballet Orchestra? Mariko Wyrick and her Miyuma (violin) play in the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra? Norman: What is the American Ballet Orchestra?
Equally interesting is that both parents, Amy Hiraga (violin) and father, Peter Hiraga (cello) are members of the SF Symphony. An insanely talented family.
Clarity and precision in writing, especially journalism, is perhaps essential?
Mariko is a member of the SF Ballet Orchestra. Her sister Mayumi won a violin audition for the orchestra this past April.
Peter Wyrick is/was Associate Principal cello; the SF Symphony is a little confusion on this point. https://www.sfsymphony.org/Data/Event-Data/Artists/W/Peter-Wyrick
Amy played in the MET for a few years, 20-30 years ago. I remember her as a child phenom in Seattle in the mid-1970s.
But yes, two outstanding musicians who raised two outstanding musicians.
Peter Wyrick, not Hiraga. You also left out “sister” before Mayumi [sic]. As you were saying about precision…
Are they related to the excellent violinist Eric Wyrick?
Mariko’s father is Peter Wyrick, cellist in the SFSym.
Mariko’s uncle (Peter’s brother) Eric is concertmaster of the NJSym
A Juilliard Dynasty
Annluise Williams Wyrick (’58, dance), who studied with Martha Graham, met her husband, Warren Wyrick (B.S. ’56, voice), who studied with Mack Harrell, in the cafeteria in the old Claremont Avenue building. Their subsequent Juilliard dynasty started with three sons, Eric, Peter, and Jed. Eric Wyrick (Pre-College ’77; Diploma ’81, violin) is now the concertmaster of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and a member of Orpheus. His daughters, flutist Fanny Wyrick-Flax and clarinetist Molly Wyrick-Flax, both were in Pre-College (class of 2009). Their mother, Laura Flax (Pre-College ’70; B.M. ’74, M.M. ’75, clarinet), is on the Pre-College faculty. Peter Wyrick (Pre-College ’80; ’84, cello), the associate principal cellist of the San Francisco Symphony, also met his wife, S.F.S. violinist Amy Hiraga (B.M. ’84, violin) at Juilliard; their daughter, Mariko Hiraga Wyrick, is a first-year cellist. And Jed Wyrick (Pre-College ’80, piano) is currently a professor of religious studies at California State University at Chico.
https://journal.juilliard.edu/journal/juilliard-family-trees-revisited
The Wyricks – and there are quite a few of them in the business – are a very musically gifted family!
I heard both Met Orchestra and NY Phil this week and thought the former was better; the Met’s superb acoustics might have something to do with it.
You’re not the first to think that. Going back 40 years or more. But they do different things; if you heard the MET orchestra in concert – not opera – it’s an EVENT; they only do three orchestral concerts a year in New York. I’ve long thought it would be an interesting experiment to put the Philharmonic in the MET pit for a couple weeks and the MET Orchestra in Geffen Hall.
My youth orchestra conductor was a violist at the MET since the seventies and I remember him being so excited to finally get to play Maher 5, 30 or so years into his career
The MET has excellent acoustics particularly compared with Geffen Hall. Smaller (Geffen) isn’t necessarily better than larger (The MET). It’s outdated thinking to favor smaller concert halls and that thinking is now becoming more apparently discredited.
Congratulations to this fine player. The MET needs more African-American musicians like her.
Japanese-American, you mean?
Congratulations to Mariko and to the Met Orchestra! Mariko is an amazing cellist.
I’m back: Va Va Voom! Well, what do you expect when she poses in a sexy pose.
Fantastic news and well deserved.
Interesting to see zero calls for celebration on Needleman’s facebook page. Surely the harem of self proclaimed victims should see this as a win?
Thank you, Norm, for celebrating this wonderful talent!