Tong Wang

As a Canadian musician, writer, and interdisciplinary artist working in a variety of styles, genres, and settings, I am on a continuous mission to bring new creative initiatives to the community. As a concert pianist, I have performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra, and received awards including the International Chopin Golden Ring Competition, the Canadian Music Competition, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal of Performing Arts, and the Canada Graduate Scholarship. With the Kuma Trio and Z4 Quartet, I have performed at venues such as Salle Bourgie, Victoria Hall, Christ Church Cathedral, and presented outreach programs at schools, senior homes, and veteran hospitals during residencies at the Beijing Central Conservatory and the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance.

I have been involved in various social and entrepreneurial initiatives including the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Music for Food, New England Conservatory’s Community Partnerships and Performances Program, and In Concert for Cambodia. As a Lincoln Center Stage artist, I have performed educational chamber music concerts featuring a diverse range of genres onboard Holland America Line. As a founding member of the Montreal Musicians Collective, I have assisted the expansion of the Heritage Festival, a year-round concert series promoting works by queer, underrepresented, and marginalized composers. During fall of 2020, I will be performing in four concerts as a resident artist at the Lunenburg Academy’s Beethoven 250th Celebration Festival.

I am actively exploring the role of the arts in relationship to nature, science, technology, culture, and society through a variety of creative projects. My current projects include a sound novel, “The [blank] Journal”, an immersive multimedia installation, “Emote: A Time Capsule”, and a solo piano album with Orpheus Classical Records, “Once Upon a Pumpkin”. My fiction, poetry, artwork, and essays have been published in the newspaper “Penguin” and the academic journal “Hear Here!”, where I also served as co-editor. As Executive Director of the arts initiative, “Zenkora Studios”, I have led a multidisciplinary team of artists across the US and Canada to pursue innovative ideas and produce multimedia orchestra concerts that illustrate the stories of an original fantasy universe.

My graduate research-performance project on “cuteness” as an aesthetic in Japan’s Studio Ghibli music was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. My violin-piano duo, TAG, is touring a program, “Song of Praise”, which explores the complex and multidimensional elements that make up our identities as Chinese-Canadian immigrant musicians. Recently, I have been chosen as a winner of the International Music Competition "Concert Tours to China" to perform my solo recital program, “Homecoming”, at major concert halls across China in 2021. This project will feature new commissions by young Chinese composers and further encourage cultural exchange between east and west.

My mentors include Kyoko Hashimoto, Bruce Brubaker, and Boris Konovalov. I have studied and performed at music festivals across Europe, Canada, and the U.S., including the Siena Music Festival, Rome Music Festival, Mendelssohn Academy, Holland Music Sessions, Brevard Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Orford Musique, and PianoFest in the Hamptons. I received my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory and McGill University, where I am currently a Doctorate Fellow.