Music from three centuries ago in a modern world: Bach’s Cello Suites have a unique position in contemporary history of civilisation. They have been played at the Berlin Wall in Nov 1989 when it was being torn down; they have been played at the 9/11 memorial in 2011; in Dec 2014, they have been played in Admiralty, Hong Kong, during the Umbrella Revolution; they have been played again in Paris during the Armistice ceremony at Arc de Triomphe in Nov 2018. This could be one of the ways we can try to find ourselves at this present time through music, particularly with Bach's music and, in this case, his Cello Suites.
In 2015, the dance film Rite of City II: Present featured the performance of Bach Cello Suites, starring locations in Florence, Italy: Piazza della Signoria, Ponte Vecchio, Museo Stibbert, and Le Murate Firenze. During Italy's fight for independence in the mid-19th century, Le Murate was the temporary abode of political prisoners; a century later, during the Second World War, political prisoners captured by the fascists were again imprisoned there. Now and here. We are experiencing this great music together in a prison.
The performance will last for approximately 50 minutes without intermission.
David Wong started his cello lessons with Wu Ge, a disciple of Paul Tortelier, at the age of 15 when he was admitted to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Junior Music Programme. He then studied cello performance with Ray Wang when he entered the Music Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he graduated in 1995. 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 Wai-ming Wong, the founding concertmaster of Hong Kong Sinfonietta.
David has performed in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Uruguay, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States, as well as in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. In summer 2014, he was invited to perform at 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 in Florence, Italy.
David was a soloist with the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra and had been a member of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta for over a decade.
