A composer never knows exactly who will wind up playing their music.

But sometimes it’s a legend.

Sam Wu will experience a composer’s dream this summer at the 42nd annual Colorado College Summer Music Festival when world-renowned conductor and violinist Scott Yoo will perform the Colorado premiere of Wu’s 2022 piece, “Mass Transit,” along with other accomplished musicians, including pianist and Summer Music Festival music director Susan Grace.

The festival runs Saturday through June 26.

“It’s a special feeling when you get to work with such incredible performers,” said the Las Vegas-based composer. “They bring so much more imagination to the music than what I can imagine. They are recreating it in a way, with their image of color and how they interpret it. Going through this broadens my own imagination.”

“Mass Transit” reflects his childhood growing up in Shanghai, China, and is inspired by the Shanghai Metro, a complex rapid transit system. As a child, he remembers the building of its infrastructure, as well as highway interchanges and skyscrapers.

The piece goes against the stereotype of what many might assume a Chinese composer would evoke in their work, such as pagodas, bamboo forests and misty mountains. It will be performed June 22 at Packard Hall at CC.

“That’s not my understanding of China,” Wu said. “It’s growing up in a metropolis that’s growing and changing. That energy is what I tried to bring into the music. It’s an honest portrayal of what it meant to grow up in China then.”

Big names and soon-to-be big names in the world of classical music descend upon downtown every summer for almost three weeks during the festival.

More than 50 pre-professional undergraduate and graduate musicians from around the U.S. will study with professional faculty musicians, composers and conductors, also from around the U.S., including Yoo, the chief conductor and artistic director of the Mexico City Philharmonic and host and executive producer of the PBS classical music series, “Now Hear This.”

This will be Wu’s second year at the festival, both times as an assistant conducting fellow.

“Even spending one summer session with him opened my ears,” he said of Yoo. “He has such a vast curiosity and understanding of the music. He leads by example by being such a Renaissance man of a musician. He inspires me to feel motivated that I can do more and push myself harder. It’s magical how he can bring out the best in all of us.”

This summer, Wu will also conduct his new piece, “Continental Express,” which the New York Youth Symphony premiered in March at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It was also Wu’s Carnegie Hall debut.

The travel-related piece imagines a high-speed rail journey across the U.S., starting on the East Coast, moving across the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains and Mojave Desert before ending on the West Coast. The concert is June 26 at Cornerstone Arts Center.

“It has the sense of optimism and energy that comes from travel,” Wu said. “And the high-speed rail parallels the high energy of working with youth orchestras.”

Both the festival fellows and the faculty spend the majority of every day ensconced in rehearsals, private lessons, master classes, and courses, and venture out to perform at free and ticketed concerts, including formal and informal chamber music concerts, orchestra performances, a free children’s concert, and free Music at Midday concerts at Packard Hall, Cornerstone Arts Center and First Congregational Church.

“The music is friendly, and there’s a lot of variety,” said Grace, CC’s associate chair, artist-in-residence, and senior lecturer in music. “And the enthusiasm of artists on stage draws everybody in. Their love of what they’re doing resonates with the audience.”

If you go

What: Colorado College Summer Music Festival

When: Saturday through June 26

Where: Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St.; Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado College; and First Congregational Church, 20 E. St. Vrain St.

Price: $35-$40 ticketed events; coloradocollege.edu/other/summermusicfestival

Ticketed events: Festival Artists Concerts, 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 13, 18, 22 and 25; Festival Orchestra Concerts, 7 p.m. June 16 and 26; Children’s Orchestra Concert – “Peter and the Wolf,” 9 and 11 a.m. June 18

Free events: Festival Artists Pre-concert Recitals, 5:45 p.m. June 18 and 25; Fellow Concerto Readings, 2 p.m. June 20; Faculty/Fellow Concert, 4 p.m. June 21; Music at Midday, 12:15 p.m. June 15, 17, 19, 22, 24-26