Theresa Wong


Theresa Wong is a cellist, vocalist, composer and improviser in the field of experimental music. In 2013 she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Early life and education

She was born in Schenectady, New York. Wong studied classical piano and cello in her early years and attended Stanford University, where she completed a B.S. in product design. After studies in graphic design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and a one year fellowship in design at Benetton Group's Fabrica research centre in Treviso, Italy, she returned to the Bay Area and completed a Master of Fine Arts at Mills College, studying with Fred Frith, Joan Jeanrenaud, Alvin Curran, Joëlle Léandre and Annie Gosfield.

Work

Her debut album, The Unlearning, was released on Tzadik Records in September 2011. This work is a collection of 21 songs inspired by Francisco Goya's The Disasters of War etchings, and is performed by Wong on cello and voice and Carla Kihlstedt on violin and voice. Her other works include O Sleep, an improvised opera premiered at Southern Exposure which she directed and presented with an ensemble of eight performers, Call It Culture, a cello duo written for Joan Jeanrenaud, Meet Me At The Future Garden, for 2 voices and 8 Intonarumori performed at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with the Magik*Magik Orchestra commissioned for Performa 09's Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners and Xenoglossia, a piece for live and prerecorded voice composed as a soundtrack to conceptual artist Jonathon Keats' travel documentary for plants, Strange Skies presented at the Berkeley Art Museum.
Wong has performed throughout the United States and internationally with artists including Fred Frith, Joëlle Léandre, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Vinny Golia, Ellen Fullman, Carla Kihlstedt, Anna Halprin and Luciano Chessa. She also appears in Peter Esmonde’s documentary on Ellen Fullman, 5 Variations on a Long String.

Discography

Collaborations: