Shannon Ma, age 20, trained with Zhao Wei in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Pre-College division. She is now one of the co-concertmasters of the Princeton University Orchestra and also plays in Princeton’s Opus Chamber Music Collective.

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Shannon was one of 22 violinists chosen globally for the 2021 Menuhin International Violin Competition, and one of 6 finalists in the 2021 Ysaÿe International Competition. She was featured on the NPR podcast “Making Menuhin” in 2020 and interviewed on NBC Bay Area in 2021 for her achievements on the violin. Shannon also toured Europe and North America with the National Youth Orchestra (NYO-USA) in 2022 and then 2023 as the program's Concertmaster. In the summer of 2021, she was invited to the Heifetz International Music Institute, and the following year, became a National YoungArts Winner in classical music. Upon her graduation in 2023, she was honored as Santa Clara County's Student Excellence in the Arts recipient, issued by the National League of American Pen Women.

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Shannon served as the concertmaster of the Saratoga High School Symphony Orchestra for three years, and soloed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the orchestra during 2022-2023 season. She also soloed with the Palo Alto Philharmonic and was concertmaster of the 2019 California Junior High All-State Honors Orchestra. Shannon has won past accolades at the Pacific Musical Society Competition, the US International Music Competition, and the Junior Bach Festival. She has also worked with renowned musicians including Midori Goto, Pamela Frank, Angelo Xiang-Yu, Ani Kavafian, Feng Ning, Sergiu Schwartz, and Danny Koo. 

 

In addition, Shannon enjoys serving the community through music. She has performed in benefit concerts including Tribute to Fallen Heroes, which raised money for California firefighters; the Food for the Soul Benefit Concert, raising funds for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley; and Tri-M fundraising concerts through her high school. Shannon was a co-regional director at the Back to Bach Project, providing attainable music education for children in the San Francisco Metro region. She also tutored for the Do Re Mi Project, an international non-profit organization that provides global online lessons.