Patty Loew:
For the past three years, Wisconsin Public Television has featured gifted teen musicians in the statewide Bolz Young Artist competition. This week we bring you Joel Weng, who not only performs on several instruments, but also composes music for an entire orchestra. He is only 14 and lives in Madison.

Reporter:
Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue” gives Joel Weng ample opportunity to show his range as a pianist.

Joel Weng:
It is fun to listen to and play and I really like this piece myself.

Woman:
He loved that piece. He said I would like to work on this piece.

Reporter:
And he has for over a year.

Woman:
He can play in his sleep.

Reporter:
Piano is only the beginning of Joel's musicianship. He also plays the violin, the flute and as a composer writes music for many more.

Joel Weng:
I moved up to two instruments and then four, then six and then 12 and then finally 16, full orchestra.

Reporter:
A full orchestra like the Wisconsin Youth Symphony where Joel plays violin. He brought his composition to the music director James Smith.

James Smith:
I liked it. I thought, this is a good piece to include and he's done a good job. We can tweak it here and there and have something that would be very nice for the audience.

Reporter:
This season they performed a movement of Joel's Symphony No. 1.

Joel Weng:
I've been composing for quite a while. I always want to take it to the next step with each thing I write and I didn't really expect them to perform it right away.

Reporter:
But they did with Joel in the violin section.

James Smith:
We had Carlos Chavez, we had Schubert and we had Joel. All the other composers that we were playing were dead, so I couldn't consult them but Joel was kind enough to give me pointers on the piece.

Joel Weng:
To be able to hear my own piece getting performed is just really exciting.

Patty Loew:
Wow. That report was produced by Andy Soth and narrated by Wisconsin Public Radio’s Lori Skelton. Three other high school age students will compete against Joel Weng. They'll play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra in a show called “Wisconsin Young Artists Compete: The Final Forte.” The competition airs live on Wisconsin Public Radio January 12 at 7:00 p.m. It airs on Wisconsin Public Television January 16th at 7:00 p.m. with a repeat on January 20th at 9:00. Next week we profile another competitor. It is just one of the reports we're working on for the next edition of "In Wisconsin."