Thursday Lunchtime Concert – cellist David Wong

Cellist David Wong started his cello lessons with Wu Ge, a disciple of Paul Tortelier, at the age of fifteen when he was admitted to the Junior Music Programme at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. During the four years when he read music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he studied the cello with Ray Wang who was a student of Orlando Cole. In a masterclass he played for the late Paul Olefsky whose teachers included Gregor Piatigorsky, Pablo Casals, Herbert von Karajan and Pierre Monteux. His cello playing has also been inspired by the late Wai-ming Wong, founding concertmaster of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.

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For the past thirty years David has performed in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, Uruguay, United Kingdom and United States.  In summer 2014, he was invited to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world.

In 2015, the dance film “Rite of City II: Present” featured his performance of Bach Cello Suites, starring locations in Florence, Italy: Piazza della Signoria, Ponte Vecchio, Museo Stibbert, and Le Murate Firenze. Le Murate was the temporary abode of political prisoners during Italy’s fight for independence in the mid-nineteenth century; a century later, during the Second World War, political prisoners captured by the fascists were also imprisoned there.

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David was a soloist with the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra and has been a member of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta for over a decade. Apart from performing as a cellist, David also organized an orchestra which has performed music by such composers as Bach, Beethoven, Durufle, Faure, Handel, Haydn, Mahler, Mozart, Rutter and Stravinsky.