According to family legend, Holden Mui ’25 learned to read sheet music before he learned to read words. “I don’t know whether that’s true or not,” says Mui, a double major in Music and Mathematics who in April learned he’d won the 2025 Louis Sudler Prize. “But I do know that as a young child I spent way too much time playing with a toy piano my parents bought me. And that I started piano lessons when I was five.”
The Louis Sudler Prize is presented annually to a graduating senior who has demonstrated excellence and the highest standards of proficiency in music, theater, painting, sculpture, design, architecture, or film. The Prize provides an award of $2,500 to the recipient.
At MIT, Mui has been actively involved in piano performance, chamber music, conducting, composition, and has played—as a violist—in the MIT Symphony Orchestra. During his junior year, he won the MIT concerto competition and performed Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto at Kresge Auditorium. Last summer he performed George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Boston Pops. Last October, the MIT Symphony Orchestra performed his composition Landscapes in concert.
“I found a depth of sincerity and confidence in “Landscapes” that speaks of a maturity beyond his years,” says Adam Boyes, director of orchestras at MIT. “He is an artist of keen sensibility, an impeccable ear, and an infectious passion for music. In a place where people of superior intelligence and creativity are the norm, it is quite something when someone sticks out. That is most certainly the case with Holden Mui.”
Starting Early
Born and raised in Lisle, Illinois, Mui spent much of his childhood pursuing two great passions: music and mathematics. “One of my earliest math memories is of my father teaching me about dividing by fractions in first grade,” he recalls. “Not the mechanical process or the rule, but what it really meant. It took me a while to understand what he was driving at. But one day I got it, and my mind lit up.”
Mui and his newly lit-up mind were soon spending hours online exploring mathematics. In seventh grade he joined his middle school math team and excelled in regional and national competitions. At the same time, Mui was deepening his knowledge of classical music—along with his abilities in performance and composition. In sixth grade, he discovered Maurice Ravel and fell in love with his harmonies; Ravel remains his favorite composer today. “He was a perfectionist, sometimes writing just a measure of music a day,” explains Mui, who studies piano privately through the Emerson/Harris Program. “Ravel was very deliberate and intentional. As a math person, I appreciated that.”
In that same sixth grade year, Mui composed a piece for violin and piano that took first place at the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) competition; it was performed the following year at the MTNA national conference in San Antonio, Texas. “I think I began composing, of a sort, when I was seven or eight,” he recalls. “I had no idea what I was doing, just writing notes and hoping they sounded good.”
Finding His Voice
At MIT, in addition to studying mathematics, piano, composition, and performing in myriad settings and ensembles, Mui found time to travel to Ghana, Tunisia, Bhutan, and Rwanda to help train student math teams through the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) program. And he continued to compose, for solo piano, trios, quartet, and orchestra. He describes his aesthetic as traditional, especially in comparison with most contemporary composers.
“He does not write the insular music of academics, or the money-driven music of cinema or pop,” writes his friend Andrew Wu, a pianist who will perform at Mui’s Composition Recital on Wednesday May 14th at 8pm at Killian Hall. “He just wants to write what he wants to write, free from others’ constraints and expectations.”
Mui showcased his own skills as a pianist at an April 18th recital at Killian Hall, where he played an all-Ravel program in honor of the composer’s 150th birth anniversary. His repertoire includes Scriabin, Chopin, Debussy, and Liszt. There is however one composer whose works he won’t perform: Holden Mui. “I don’t want to set a precedent on how these works should be played,” he explains. “I want the performer to have some freedom of choice.”
Next fall, Mui will be working at 0xPARC on development and deployment of programmable cryptography, and the following year will begin a PhD program in Mathematics at the University of Michigan. He’s pleased his new school also boasts one of the country’s finest music programs. “I find the same pleasure in music that I do in math,” says Mui. “Each one makes me feel as if I’m exploring a new world.”
The Council for the Arts at MIT presents several awards annually to MIT students who have demonstrated excellence in the arts.
Written by Ken Shulman
Editorial direction by Leah Talatinian