Christina Fong
Associate Concertmaster
Associate Concertmaster
Mr. & Mrs. Milo R. DeVries Chair
Michigan resident Christina Fong is a leading performer of new music on the violin and viola. Fong’s series of recordings on OgreOgress, mostly world premieres, include several of Cage’s final works (the ‘number pieces’ One6, One10, Two4, Four, Twenty-Three and Twenty-Six with Twenty-Eight & Twenty-Nine), Feldman’s complete violin, viola and piano works, his Violin and String Quartet and three early quartets, Hovhaness’s published works for violin, viola and keyboard and three of his concertos with strings, several Schoenberg string works and fragments, Alvear’s Fuerzas for viola and string quartets by Beardsley, Toub, Kotlowy and Prokop. The diverse group of artists in collaboration include sitarist Gaurav Mazumdar, keyboardist Arved Ashby, cellist Karen Krummel, percussionist Glenn Freeman, pianist Paul Hersey, the Prague Winds, shō player Tamami Tono, the Rangzen Quartet & Strings, conductor Rastislav Štúr and the Slovak Philharmonic.
Fong has presented the North American or Michigan premieres of compositions by Ashby, Pärt, Lang, Erb, Górecki, Stravinsky, Cage, Harrison, Mellits, Alvear, Thomas, Plichta, Gordon, Nyman, Twomey, Feldman, Barber, Glass, Shechtman and Bijkerk. Concert presentations have included performances of violin and piano works by Feldman, Nyman, Pärt and Górecki with Arved Ashby, Glass’s A Madrigal Opera, complete works for unaccompanied strings and the 3rd movement of his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Cage’s complete ‘number pieces’ for solo violin, Harrison’s Suite for Violin and Gamelan with Embellish, Nyman’s complete solo violin music and the world premiere of his On The Fiddle with the Grand Rapids Symphony.
Fong has bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern University, where she graduated Pi Kappa Lambda and was awarded the honorary title “Eckstein Scholar.” Her principle violin teachers were Blair Milton, Myron Kartman and Donna Schaff. She studied orchestral music with Samuel Magad, Rubin Gonzales, Francis Akos, Charlie Pikler, Blair Milton and Edgar Muenzer and received chamber music coaching from Gerardo Ribiero, Donald Owens and Ray Still. Fong has held positions with the Florida Philharmonic and Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
A member of the Grand Rapids Symphony since 1988, Fong is currently Associate Concertmaster and plays in the Symphony’s Calder Quintet, which tours western Michigan giving civic and educational concerts. From 1990 to 2002 Fong served as an adjunct instructor of violin at Grand Valley State University.
In 2010 Fong was recipient of a Fulbright Hayes grant and served as a US cultural representative in Minsk, Belarus where she performed a new music concert with the Belarus Philharmonic and gave master classes at the Belarus State Academy of Music.