Daniel Xu is a high school clarinetist from Exton, Pennsylvania. He started his musical journey with piano and later found his passion for the clarinet at age 10. Daniel was named the 2025 winner with Distinction for classical music clarinet by National YoungArts Foundation and performed at New World Center in Miami. Daniel has also been recognized as the finalist of the ICA high school solo competition in 2023, U.S. Navy Band Young Artist Solo competition in 2024, U.S Marine Band Concerto Competition in 2025, and the winner of MTNA Pennsylvania Woodwind competition in both 2022 and 2023. In 2024, Daniel was selected as one of the three clarinets to participate in the Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra NYO2 program and performed at Carnegie Hall and Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. Daniel currently performs with Philadelphia Youth Orchestra as the rotating principal clarinetist and also performed with Delaware County Youth Orchestra for two seasons.
Benefited from taking online music lessons due to the frequent family moving and limited local resource for woodwind instrumentalist, Daniel founded Empowering Woodwinds, a nonprofit organization aims to advocate woodwind music education and empower young woodwind musicians to collaborate, bring live music to local communities and people who need it in their lives, exchange musical ideas, share performance opportunities, instrument care tips and make woodwind music lessons more accessible to beginners.
Hommage á J. S. Bach, Béla Kovács, 3:54
