This October’s Artist of the Month is Eagan High School’s incredibly talented junior Zhen Tu.

Zhen has been playing classical piano since she was four years old, about a year before she moved to the US from China.

She started playing the piano because her parents were very interested in having her try all sorts of new things, and music was the hobby that really stuck. Zhen’s parents always thought it would be very beneficial for her to learn an instrument at a young age because they knew it would assist her in other areas throughout her whole life.

“In the beginning it was more like they [my parents] wanted me to learn to play the piano, but, gradually, as I learned more and more, and got older I started really loving it a lot. It was a process,” Tu explains

“…gradually, as I learned more and more, and got older I started really loving it a lot.”

Eight months ago, Zhen won a competition operated by the Young People’s Symphony Concert Association (YPSCA), which awarded her the opportunity to play multiple shows with the Minnesota Orchestra in the Young People’s Concert Series at Orchestra Hall. Four of the performances are this October, two on the 28th and two on 29th, and are already sold out, but the concerts on February 10th and 11th still have a few seats left.

Zhen is currently still enrolled at EHS, but is also a full-time PSEO student at the University of Minnesota. She takes piano lessons with her personal instructor once a week, in addition to her studio classes at the U of M, where she and the other students play for each other and give each other feedback.

To the people who are also passionate about playing music, Zhen gives these words of advice, “If you face challenges, don’t give up. It’s really easy to just say ‘Oh, it’s so hard and I don’t want to play anymore,’ but just know that if you go slowly and take it day by day, then it will get better.”

Assuming she reaches a certain level, Zhen hopes to pursue piano, or at least music, as a career in the future.

Shown above is a video of Zhen Tu performing for The Schubert Club Bruce P. Carlson Student Scholarship Competition 2015 Winners Recital in the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts’ new Concert Hall, in 2015.