David Fung
Encyclopedia
Professional career
In 2002, David Fung won the Symphony AustraliaSymphony Australia
- Symphony Services International :Formerly Symphony Services Australia Limited , Symphony Services International has been orchestrating excellence for many years....
Young Performer of the Year Award, after four rounds of competition which culminated in his performance of Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Villa Senar, according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934...
with the Sydney Symphony during the concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
finals at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
Concert Hall. He has subsequently appeared with the major orchestras of Australia and recorded a CD with the ABC Classics
ABC Classics
ABC Classics is the classical music record label within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It is internationally recognised as Australia's premier classical music label, with a catalogue of more than 500 titles...
label.
Deciding to pursue a career in music, Fung transferred in 2003 to the Colburn School
Colburn School
The Colburn School is a music, dance, and drama school located in downtown Los Angeles adjacent to the Museum of Contemporary Art and across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to study with John Perry. Fung was the first student of piano to be admitted to the Colburn Conservatory in its inaugural year; in May 2007, he became the first pianist to graduate from the Conservatory.
Major orchestras with which he has worked include the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is the leading symphony orchestra in Israel. It was originally known as the Palestine Orchestra, and in Hebrew as התזמורת הסימפונית הארץ ישראלית The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit...
, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is a 40-member American chamber orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, considered by music critic Jim Svejda as "America's finest chamber orchestra".-History:...
, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra
San Diego Symphony
The San Diego Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in San Diego, California. On 6 December 1910, it gave its first concert as the San Diego Civic Orchestra.Currently, the Symphony performs over 100 concerts each season...
, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...
, and the Queensland Orchestra, among numerous others. Fung has also been invited to give recitals at the some of the world's most important music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival
Aspen Music Festival and School
The Aspen Music Festival and School, founded in 1949, is an internationally renowned classical music festival that presents music in an intimate, small-town setting...
, and the 2006 Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
Queen's Hall Recital Series, where Fung was described as being “prodigiously talented... and probably [doing] ten more impossible things daily before breakfast,” by Jonas Green in the Edinburgh Guide. His recitals at the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
were especially well-received.
In 2008, David became a top prizewinner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein Piano Masters Competition in Tel Aviv, and was awarded the Prize for Best Classical Concerto, and Best Performance of Chamber Music.
Besides the piano, Fung also plays the harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
and violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and attended James Ruse Agricultural High School
James Ruse Agricultural High School
James Ruse Agricultural High School is one of four New South Wales Government agricultural high schools. It is a selective, co-educational public high school located at Carlingford, New South Wales, Australia...
in Sydney.
Awards
- The 12th Arthur RubinsteinArthur RubinsteinArthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers...
International Piano Masters Competition: 4th Prize, Prize for Best Classical Concerto, Prize for Best Chamber Music (2008) - The 3rd Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition: 2nd Prize and Audience Prize (2003)
- ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award (2002)
Recordings
In addition to recording for NaxosNaxos Records
Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
and ABC Classics, Fung has recorded three albums with Los Angeles-based Yarlung Records.
In 2005, Fung recorded his American debut album with Yarlung Records, From Hubris to Humility, which featured works by Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, and Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
; his second album, Evening Conversations, released in 2006 also by Yarlung, was devoted to pieces by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...
, Rachmaninoff, Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, and Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...
, and was praised as “an overall favorite” of the 2007 piano albums reviewed by James Harrington in the American Record Guide.