Kristopher Tong,
Violinist
 Considered
one of the most exciting musicians emerging today, Violinist Kristopher
Tong has been praised for his depth of insight, virtuosity and creative
flair. In 2005 Mr. Tong served on the faculty at the Yellow Barn
Festival's Young Artists Program and from he 2002-2004 was Principal
Second Violin with the Verbier Festival Orchestra, with whom he toured
throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He has appeared under the
baton of some of the world's premier conductors, including James Levine,
Christoph von Dohnanyi, Yuri Temirkanov, Kurt Masur, Paavo Jarvi,
Mstislav Rostropovich, Kent Nagano, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Charles Dutoit,
and Bobby McFerrin. Mr. Tong has performed with Mizayaki Festival
Orchestra in Japan, the New York String Orchestra, and appeared as a
guest soloist with the Verbier Chamber Orchestra under Dmitri
Sitkovetsky and Yuri Bashmet. He was also a member of the original cast
of Classical Savion at the Joyce Theater in New York City, a
collaborative project with tap dancer Savion Glover.
A native of Binghamton, New York, Mr. Tong began his violin studies in a
public elementary school program in the Johnson City School District
before moving to Salt Lake City, Utah, when he was 11. As a student of
Leonard Braus he was concertmaster of the Utah Youth Symphony for two
years at age 15. He received his Bachelors degree at Indiana University
in Bloomington, where he studied with the late Franco Gulli, Yuval Yaron,
and Miriam Fried. In 2005 he completed his Masters Degree at the New
England Conservatory of Music under Ms. Fried.
First generation born in the United States to parents from Hong Kong and
Taiwan, Mr. Tong has an older sister, Melissa, who is an accomplished
violinist residing in New York City and a younger sister, Jessica, who
dances with the famed Hubbard Street contemporary dance company in
Chicago.
The Borromeo String Quartet
http://www.borromeoquartet.org
Nicholas Kitchen, Violin
Kristopher Tong, Violin
Mai Motobuchi, Viola
Yeesun Kim, cello
Ensemble-in-Residence
at the New England Conservatory of Music
Ensemble-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Ensemble-in-Residence at the Taos School of Music summer program
Winner of the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant
Winner of Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award (2001)
Winner of the Cleveland Quartet Award (1998)
Ensemble-in-Residence for National Public Radio's Performance Today
(1998-99)
Top Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian,
France (1990)
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News Quotes
"A remarkably accomplished string quartet, not simply for its high
technical polish and refined tone, but
more importantly for the searching musical insights it brings."
– The Chicago Tribune
"A musical experience of luminous beauty"
- The San Diego Reader
"Each of the greatest string quartets has redefined what the
possibilities of the medium are: through
the perfection of its ensemble and intonation, through its poise and its
passion, the Borromeos
are recreating the medium anew and we are lucky to be here to hear it."
- The Boston Globe
"The digital tide washing over society is lapping at the shores of
classical music. The Borromeo players
have embraced it in their daily musical lives like no other major
chamber music group."
- New York Times
“It would not be an exaggeration for me to say that much of this book
has come from trying to
figure out what makes the Borromeo Quartet’s performances so
emotionally, intellectually,
and spiritually captivating.”
– from ‘Music and the Soul' by author Kurt
Leland
 Each
visionary performance of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet
strengthens and deepens its reputation as one of the most important
ensembles of our time. Admired and sought after for both its fresh
interpretations of the classical music canon and its championing of
works by 20th and 21st century composers, the ensemble has been hailed
for its"edge-of-the-seat performances," by the Boston Globe, which
called it"simply the best there is."
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Borromeo continues to be a
pioneer in its use of technology, and has the trailblazing distinction
of being the first string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the
concert stage. Reading music this way helps push artistic boundaries,
allowing the artists to perform solely from 4-part scores and composers’
manuscripts, a revealing and metamorphic experience which these
dedicated musicians now teach to students around the world. As the New
York Times noted,"The digital tide washing over society is lapping at
the shores of classical music. The Borromeo players have embraced it in
their daily musical lives like no other major chamber music group."
Moreover, the Quartet often leads discussions enhanced by projections of
handwritten manuscripts, investigating with the audience the creative
process of the composer. And in 2003 the Borromeo became the first
classical ensemble to make its own live concert recordings and videos,
distributing them for many years to audiences through its Living
Archive. The next offering of Living Archive, a music learning web
portal, will be released next season.
Passionate educators, the Borromeos
encourage audiences of all ages to explore and listen to both
traditional and contemporary repertoire in new ways. The ensemble uses
multi-media tools such as video projection to share the often surprising
creative process behind some works, or to show graphically the elaborate
architecture behind others. This produces delightfully refreshing
viewpoints and has been a springboard for its acclaimed young people’s
programs. One such program is MATHEMUSICA which delves into the
numerical relationships that under-pin the sounds of music and show how
musical syntax mirrors natural forms. CLASSIC VIDEO uses one movement of
a quartet as the platform from which to teach computer drawing, video
editing, animation, musical form and production processes to create a
meaningful joining of music and visual art.
The quartet has been ensemble-in-residence at the New England
Conservatory and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for twenty-three
years; and has worked extensively as performers and educators with the
Library of Congress (highlighting both its manuscripts and instrument
collections); the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Taos
School of Music. The ensemble joined the Emerson Quartet as the 2014-15
Hittman Ensembles in Residence at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore,
and its upcoming season includes substantial residencies at Colorado
State University in Fort Collins, Kansas University in Lawrence, and the
San Francisco Conservatory.
The
ensemble has been acclaimed for its presentation of the cycle of Bartok
String Quartets as well as its lecture"BARTOK: PATHS NOT TAKEN," both of
which give audiences a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear a set of
rediscovered alternate movements Béla Bartók drafted for his six
Quartets. Describing a Bartok concert at the Curtis Institute, the
Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the quartet"performed at a high
standard that brought you so deeply into the music's inner workings that
you wondered if your brain could take it all in ... The music's mystery,
violence, and sorrow become absolutely inescapable."
Also noteworthy in the BSQ repertory are its dramatic discoveries within
the manuscripts of the Beethoven Quartets, and its performances of the
COMPLETE CYCLE; the BEETHOVEN DECATHALON (four concerts of Beethoven’s
last ten quartets, all with pre-concert lectures exploring his
manuscripts); and single BEETHOVEN TRYPTICH concerts (one concert
including three quartets). Its expansive repertoire also includes the
Shostakovich Cycle and those of Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Brahms, Schumann,
Schoenberg, Janacek, Lera Auerbach, Tchaikovsky, and Gunther Schuller.
The Quartet has collaborated with some of this generation’s most
important composers, including Gunther Schuller, John Cage, Gyorgy
Ligeti, Steve Reich, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey,
John Harbison, and Leon Kirchner, among many others; and has performed
on major concert stages across the globe, including appearances at
Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall, the
Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the
Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music Festival in Tuscany, the Prague
Spring Festival and the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt.
The 2015-16 season includes performances in Switzerland, Japan, Korea
and China; the Bartók Cycle in Boston, San Francisco and at the Library
of Congress; and appearances at the Schubert Club in Minneapolis,
Amherst College, and Trinity Church Wall Street, to name only a few.
"Nothing less than masterful" (Cleveland.com), the Borromeo Quartet has
received numerous awards throughout its illustrious career, including
Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant and Martin E. Segal Award,
and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award. It was also a
recipient of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and top
prizes at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian,
France. [September 2015]
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