Outside of acting, Josie is also a musician. They play flute, traditional Chinese bamboo flute, and taiko drums. Josie also studies Chinese mixed martial arts.
DIZI
Josie started learning dizi (Chinese bamboo flute) when they were 11 years old. When Josie was 15, they played with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra as the sole dizi artist during their 2012 summer concert with the Peking Acrobats. They founded Swarthmore College’s first Chinese Music Ensemble, which is now an official credited course. They were invited to perform with award-winning singer Dr. Peng Xu and at Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia.
Josie has won a variety of national and international competitions including First Place in Woodwinds in the 2017 United States International Music Competition (USIMC), first place in the Young Artist Awards in the 2020 Canadian International Music Competition, and first place in the 2021 National Flute Competition based in China. Through dizi, Josie has been able to not only explore their cultural heritage, but also the capacities of music for representation, expression, connection, and empowerment.
Taiko Drumming
Josie studied Taiko Drumming in Swarthmore College with professional taiko player, Joe Small. Their ensemble performed at the 2019 East Coast Taiko Conference at Cornell University. After graduating, Josie studied taiko in Oahu, Hawaii with Kenny Endo as the 2019-2020 Fellow at the Taiko Center of the Pacific. They also taught taiko in various schools across the islands of Oahu and Molokai with Chizuko Endo as a teacher’s assistant and performed with the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble.
Martial Arts
Josie received a Black Belt in Taekwondo from the Orange County School of the Arts in 2014. For the past 2 years, they have been studying Chinese Mixed Martial arts at the Advanced Martial Arts Academy in Rowland Heights, specializing in swords.
Flute
Josie studied flute at the Orange County School of the Arts Instrumental Conservatory. They played with the conservatory’s top two ensembles: the Frederick Fennell Wind Ensemble and the OCSA Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, they performed at the Midwest Clinic and debuted the piece “Sea Goddess” by Hiroaki Katoaka. That summer, Josie toured with the OCSA Symphony Orchestra in Europe, performing at Vienna’s Musikverein, Bratislava’s Slovak Radio Building, and Prague’s Rudolfinum. In 2014, Josie also won 2nd place in the Southern California Philharmonic Concerto Competition where they were invited to perform the 2nd Movement of the Reinecke Flute Concerto.
This video includes excerpts from OCSA Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Shostakovich Symphony No. 9 at the Rudolfinum, where Josie was the principal flautist.