Isabella Isza Wu’s work focuses on exploring the ways in which music can create transformative experiences for audiences, community engagement, and education. She is interested in understanding how audiences relate to music and creating immersive experiences through the pipe organ.

Isza (pronounced EYEsa) currently serves as an assistant organist at Macy’s Wanamaker Organ, the largest fully functioning organ in the world; and the organ scholar at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. 

She has performed at many venues, including Longwood Gardens, Ocean Grove Auditorium, Overture Hall (Madison WI), St. Luke's Episcopal Church (Evanston), Alice Millar Chapel, and Christ Church (Philadelphia).  This past year, Isza played for the opening worship service of the 2023 AGO Midwest Regional Convention.

A teacher and community artist, Isza has taught or interned at several music education programs. These include programs at the Madison Symphony Orchestra, The People's Music School (Chicago), Academy of Music and Special Education (Northwestern), and Madison Music Makers. She currently works with patients and caregivers at the Penn Memory Center (University of Pennsylvania) as a teaching artist, through a partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music.

Isza began studying organ at age 19 at Northwestern University through non-major lessons. Since then, she has studied with leading organists across the nation. Isza has participated at programs such as the Oregon Bach Festival and the Oberlin Summer Organ Institute.

Although her career has been focused in the realm of keyboard music, Isza draws upon a broad musical and educational background and has a background in piano, organ, violin, voice, and percussion studies. She is the recipient of two Bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University, in Piano Performance and Communication Studies, respectively, and also completed an ad hoc major in Sacred Music. Her underground training also included extensive coursework in vocal education and conducting.

Equally at home in choral music, Isza sang with the Alice Millar Chapel Choir, performing major works including Handel's Laudate Pueri Dominum (soloist), Haydn's Missa in honorem Beatissimae, Puccini's Messa di gloria, and Stacy Garrop’s Terra Nostra, alongside the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra and on WFMT. As a keyboard collaborator for choral music, Isza has worked with The Crossing on their recent project, David T. Little's Sin-Eater.

This coming year brings several solo and collaborative performances throughout the east coast, playing several large-scale organs and many smaller ones. Isza is particularly looking forward to working with living composers, creating large-scale sonic landscapes, and collaborations with Penn Memory Center.

Her mentors include Alan Morrison, Leon Schelhase, Jeffrey Brillhart, Mary Javian, Donald Nally, and Eric Budzynski. Isza currently resides in Philadelphia, where she is pursuing her master’s degree in Organ Performance at the Curtis Institute of Music under the Charles and Judith Freyer Fellowship.