Canadian artist Tong Wang engages in a variety of styles, genres, and settings to bring new creative initiatives to the community. As a concert pianist, she has performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and 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, Tong has performed at venues such as Salle Bourgie, Victoria Hall, and 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.

Tong has 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, she has performed educational chamber music concerts featuring a diverse range of genres onboard Holland America Line. In 2016 and 2017, as Executive Director of the arts initiative, “Zenkora Studios,” Tong led artists across the US and Canada to produce multimedia orchestra concerts that illustrate the stories of an original fantasy universe. In the fall of 2020, she performed in a series of solo and chamber concerts at the Lunenburg Academy’s Beethoven 250th Celebration Festival. The summer of 2021, she performed at festivals and workshops in Italy, Germany, Belgium, and France including the Belcanto Festival, International Music Workshop and Festival, Orpheus Instituut, and Festival International de Musiques Universitaires.

Tong is actively exploring the role of the arts in relation to identity, culture, and current social-political issues. Her multimedia performances incorporate writing, art, audio-visual materials and audience interaction. Her violin-piano duo, TAG Duo, debuted the concert in 2021, “Song of Praise,” which explores the complex and multidimensional elements that make up their identities as Chinese-Canadian immigrant musicians. As a 2021 Cohort of the Global Leaders Program, she collaborated with international partners to drive social change and make a sustainable impact on the community through music programs.

Tong’s mentors include Kyoko Hashimoto, Bruce Brubaker, and Boris Konovalov. She has 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, PianoFest in the Hamptons, and Belcanto & Virtuoso. Tong received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory and McGill University, where she is currently a Doctorate Fellow. Tong’s 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. She continues to explore the subject of “cuteness” in kawaii metal, lo-fi, and classical music in her doctorate projects. Tong is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Fonds de Recherche du Québec, and SSHRC for the creation of a new horror anime opera, “Labyrinth of Tears.”

Tong recently toured a recital on multiculturalism, “我们 Us” in Lunenburg, Montreal, Basel, and presented the interactive concerts “We’re Not Really Strangers” and “My Neighbours Totoro and Claude!” at the Verbier Festival. In 2022, Tong launched the Windwood Music Festival in Airdrie, Alberta to engage with rural farming communities through classical chamber music. In 2023, Tong toured with Duo Perdendosi across the eastern US & Canada and premiered with Duo Incarnadine a new commission by Alice Ho, “Four Impressions of China.” As a recipient of the Canada Council Arts Abroad Touring grant, Tong will perform a new program, “Dark Tales,” with Duo Perdendosi across Eastern Europe in Spring 2024. Using diverse mediums, Tong aims to share the power of art to reach across time, languages, borders, and cultures to connect people and kindle a shared understanding.