Review: The Boston Musical Intelligencer

BUTTERFLIES FLUTTERED AS CHAMBER MUSIC SOARED

By Mary Fairchild
July 2, 2024

The Manhattan Chamber Players,* (MCP) a morphing collective of New York-based musicians who share the aim of performing the greatest works in the chamber repertoire at the highest level, opened Maverick Concerts’ 108th season on Sunday afternoon. The beautifully curated “Wind, Sun, and Water” featured Ravel, Harold Meltzer, Debussy, and the (regrettably!) little-known, late-19th-century Frenchman Jean Cras.

Pianist David Fung took the Maverick stage after the intermission, with Debussy’s three-piece suite “Estampes” (“Engravings,” or “Prints”) for solo piano. From the subtly mystical opening bars, through to the flash and glamour of the final few notes, the work conjures three images, one after another, with little pause between movements— “Pagodes” (Pagodas), “La soirée dans Grenade,” (Evening in Granada), and “Jardins sous la pluie” (Gardens in the Rain). Mr. Fung’s radiant, scintillating pianism evoked all these with brilliant delicacy that kept us at the edge our seats.

MCP joined Fung for the grand finale, the Piano Quintet by composer (and naval commander!) Jean Cras. We love to discover music we’ve never heard before; it can prove particularly rewarding to encounter an unknown composer. Cras was born in 1870 and made his home in the French province of Brittany. Commissioned into the French navy in 1908, he wrote much of his music on shipboard during World War One. He traveled the Atlantic and Pacific, the Mediterranean and the coast of Africa. He managed to put the notes for his Piano Quintet on paper while skippering a torpedo boat.

Much of Cras’s substantial oeuvre is shot through with the cadences and harmonies of his native Brittany. MCP and Fung brought their formidable technical prowess and inextinguishable panache to the work. What a revelation! How can it have escaped our notice? It abounds with melodies in the pentatonic mode typical of the Breton musical language, and contains many passages in unison or at the octave.

The atmosphere at the Maverick Concert Hall is utterly unique and utterly wonderful. A flight of tiny butterflies fluttered and danced around in the dappled woodland outside of the rustic building. Veteran Maverick concertgoers just shrugged them off; one greeted the onslaught as “just another moth to feed.”

*Katie Hyun, violin; Rubén Rengel, violin; Luke Fleming, viola; Andrew Janns, cello; David Fung, piano

Mary Fairchild lives in Rosendale, New York, after a long career as a host at WQXR, WNYC, WMHT (Schenectady), and WPLN (Nashville). She has for some 20 years been writing program notes for Vladimir Feltsman’s PianoSummer at New Paltz. Before being called by Kalliope, the Muse of Eloquence and of Writing About Music, she worked as a financial editor and manager of investor relations in Wall Street.

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Review: Bacewicz Piano Concerto, San Francisco Classical Voice

BUTTERFLIES FLUTTERED AS CHAMBER MUSIC SOARED

By David Bratman
March 25, 2025

Before intermission came the Piano Concerto by Grażyna Bacewicz, the mid-20th-century Polish composer whose works have been emerging lately in performance. This 1949 piece has recently been unearthed thanks in part to the efforts of Saturday’s soloist, David Fung.

You could easily mistake the music for a lost Sergei Prokofiev concerto, particularly in Fung’s propulsive rendition. The solo part is full of characteristic Prokofiev-like figures: simple chordal melodies, crisp runs followed by sudden pounding on the keyboard, brief high-tension climaxes — all executed with precision and vigor here.

The accompaniment is similar while exhibiting Bacewicz’s distinctive approach to orchestration. The composer balances ensemble and soloist nicely, never letting the music get too clotted or grandiose. Under Cabrera, the orchestra had its finest moments at the beginning of the slow movement, where darkly shimmering strings combine with ominous sounds from the winds, and in the finale, which features a prominent role for percussion.

Fung reinforced his firm, snappy approach in his encores, playing Franz Schubert’s gentle Moment Musical No. 3 with a jumpy percussive attack and following this with Moritz Moszkowski’s busy and lively showpiece “Étincelles” (as popularized by Vladimir Horowitz).

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David Fung signs with Cinque Artist Management for exclusive representation in Australia and New Zealand

Cinque Artist Management warmly welcomes internationally acclaimed pianist and Steinway artist, David Fung.

Praised for his “ravishing and simply gorgeous” performances in The Washington Post, pianist David Fung is widely recognized for interpretations that are elegant and refined, yet intensely poetic and uncommonly expressive. With a repertoire of over sixty concertos, David regularly performs as a soloist with the world’s premier ensembles including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony working with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Lan Shui, and Christian Zacharias. An incisive interpreter of Mozart and Bach, he has collaborated with the Israel, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Orpheus, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, and New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

As a recitalist and chamber musician, David Fung is a frequent guest artist at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide, including Aspen, Blossom, Tippet Rise, Ottawa, Edinburgh and Hong Kong Arts Festivals. At his Edinburgh International Festival debut, the Edinburgh Guide described him as “impossibly virtuosic, prodigiously talented… and who probably does ten more impossible things daily before breakfast.” He has captivated audiences at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Louvre, Gewandhaus, Palais des Beaux-Arts, and Zürich Tonhalle, as well as the major halls in Asia.

In 2020, David Fung’s Transcendent Beethoven recording featured on Apple Music’s ‘Best of Beethoven’, a list of outstanding releases of the composer during the 250th anniversary of his birth.

A native of Sydney, Australia before moving the US two decades ago, and now sharing his time between New York City and Vancouver, David serves on the faculties of New York’s Manhattan School of Music and the University of British Columbia. He is also Curator at the Chan Center for the Performing Arts, in Vancouver.

To read more about David, click here.

https://www.cinqueartistmanagement.com/cinque-welcomes-david-fung/

Interview with David Fung ahead of his performance with the Australia Ensemble

David's Notes from Medicine to Music

9 April 2024

David Fung, piano

Joining Australia Ensemble UNSW's second concert of 2024 on 18 May, is phenomenal international pianist, David Fung.

Former UNSW Medicine student, David Fung interviews with us ahead of his upcoming performance where he delves into his career trajectory post UNSW, and shares invaluable advice to aspiring musicians.

Tell us about your career trajectory, from studying Medicine and Music at UNSW, to becoming a sensational international performer.

Music was an integral part of my life at five years old when I started violin lessons at Lane Cove Public School. My love affair with piano began shortly thereafter and continued through my first year as a medical student at UNSW during the course of which I won the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award. I subsequently deferred my medical studies to pursue a career in music. I was the first piano graduate of the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, and I spent several years studying in Hannover, Germany, and at Yale University. Since then, I have collaborated with many leading orchestras in the world including Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony working with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Lan Shui, and Christian Zacharias. 

What are you looking forward to most in Australia Ensemble UNSW’s second concert?

I'm looking forward to returning to UNSW, my alma mater, and performing at the Sir John Clancy Auditorium which holds a special place in my heart. I feel a strong connection to Mozart's music, and the Kegelstatt trio embodies the lyricism and joy that Mozart conveys so effortlessly. The Schumann Piano Quartet is a masterpiece in the chamber music repertoire, and its devastatingly beautiful slow movement serves as the centrepiece of the work.

What would you say to your younger self who just started studying as a first year?

Be curious: Learn as much as you can about the music you are playing, and immerse yourself in its details. Be curious about the world around you, especially in the field of humanities. When I was a student, I attended every concert I physically could, and those sound waves are still in my DNA. This includes concerts by my classmates from which I learned volumes.

Be kind to yourself: A career in music is a marathon! It takes a lot of nos to get to a yes. Find joy and fulfillment in the process of creating, rather than in the performance itself. It's also important to view performances as an opportunity for further self-awareness and growth. In an industry that promotes perfection, it's easy to be paralyzed by self-loathing and self-criticism. Being kind to yourself often allows for kindness and grace to be extended to others.

Be flexible: It’s important for young musicians to give themselves the permission to be flexible in their goals and to reevaluate them often. There are infinite ways of creating and communicating art, and as such, there isn’t one path to success in music. The beauty of music is that you define what success means to you by pursuing the avenues that interest you the most.

Join us for Australia Ensemble UNSW's second concert of the year and witness David's virtuosity in collaboration with Australia Ensemble.

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Review: The Boston Musical Intelligencer

MCP+ Fung = Delight

By Mary Fairchild
July 27, 2023

Maverick Concerts has outdone itself. If that’s even possible. For the third Sunday in a row, the Woodstock forest rang with glorious music, this time from members of the Manhattan Chamber Players: Brendan Speltz, Siwoo Kim, violins; Luke Fleming, viola and artistic director; Brook Speltz, cello; and David Fung, piano.

Stravinsky’s Three Pieces: Danse, Eccentrique, and Cantique, have been described as a set of studies in popular, fantastic, and liturgical modes. And when we might reasonably expect a spirited finale, iconoclast extraordinaire Stravinsky gives us a canticle, almost a dirge, of deep feeling. Four MCP players [or spell out “MCP”]leaned into the affect of these miniatures with adroit and perfectly suited conviction, by turns biting, strong, and sweet. Second violinist Siwoo Kim turned in his chair to face the audience at times, an unmistakable and irresistible invitation for us to be sure not to miss out on this ride.

Tchaikovsky’s Second String Quartet, his Op. 22, is a showy and very Russian piece of work―sad and exuberant, intimate and symphonic. Full of sound and fury, but told by a genius and signifying plenty, the grandeur of its big chords melded with dolor, copious and honeyed. The slow movement is a cri de coeur, and we love its tempo marking: Andante, by definition a temperate speed, followed by the qualifier ma non tanto, “but not too much.” That is to say, “moderately, but not too moderately.” The quartet was completely at home with all of this, bringing us adroitly along through the changes of mood, the showiness and sweetness, the warmth and the sorrow without for a moment losing the urgency of direction.

Pianist David Fung took Maverick’s center stage after the intermission, with a riveting performance of Maurice Ravel’s immense solo transcription of his “Choreographic Poem for Orchestra” La Valse, which conjures great 19th century ballrooms. The composer described “fantastic, fatal whirling” as the century ended. A reflection back to a previous age and composed in the years immediately after World War One, La Valse is a great lamentation over the devastation wrought in that senseless conflict, over so much that was irretrievably lost. Mr. Fung performed with both lightness and dark, delicacy and power. He was clearly in command of this enormously complex and demanding score, and of the ambiguities contained within the world it was stirring up.

The Ravel somehow, beautifully and unexpectedly, set the stage for Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44, composed three-quarters of a century earlier. As with La Valse, we find in the Quintet the side-by-side bravura, frenzy, and pathos.  From cellist Brook Speltz, we received a frantic pedal point, not an easy thing to invoke: How can a pedal point, anchoring all the other voices, be frantic? There was determined insistence from the entire ensemble in the feverish unison scales throughout the scherzo, sweet sadness in a duet between the cello and artistic director Luke Fleming’s viola, reassuring confidence from first violinist Brendan Speltz as he explored the resonance in the lowest strings of his instrument. It all felt like a homecoming, the string quartet and the solo pianist uniting for a grand gesture that seemed to predict a later time and graciously left us to ponder the ways in which one piece reflected the other.

Mary Fairchild lives in Rosendale, New York, after a long career as a host at WQXR, WNYC, WMHT (Schenectady), and WPLN (Nashville). She has for some 20 years been writing program notes for Vladimir Feltsman’s PianoSummer at New Paltz. Before being called by Kalliope, the Muse of Eloquence and of Writing About Music, she worked as a financial editor and manager of investor relations in Wall Street.

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Acclaimed Vancouver pianist David Fung launches Inspired at the Chan

The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts presents Inspired at the Chan: Pianist David Fung on October 2 at 3 pm at the Chan Centre

by Gail Johnson
September 7, 2022

PIANST DAVID FUNG spent the summer performing at events such as South Korea’s Yeosu International Music Festival and the Anchorage Chamber Music Festival. The Steinway Artist is a newly appointed assistant professor of piano at UBC. And the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts has announced that the acclaimed musician will launch Inspired at the Chan, a new family-friendly concert series.

Formerly known as Music on the Point, the programming will include four one-hour concerts that include audience engagement or participation.

Having played prestigious venues from Carnegie Hall to Palais des Beaux-Arts, Fung has also performed with revered organizations like Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Melbourne Symphony. The curator of the Spirio Piano Series at the Chan Centre, he has issued several albums. The Whole Note praised his most recent release, Transcendent Beethoven, for its “strong command of phrasing and rhythmic impetus”. Fung counts Yuja Wang among his close collaborators and friends.

For his debut Chan Centre performance, Fung will perform a mixed program with compositions by Domenico Scarlatti, Franz Schubert, and Maurice Ravel alongside contemporary works by Missy Mazzoli and Nico Muhly. The throughline consists of drama and lyricism.

The concert will have no intermission and will feature a post-show Q&A, moderated by Pat Carrabré, director of the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts and the UBC School of Music.

“David’s performances are full of colour, technical brilliance, sensitivity, and virtuosity,” Carrabré says in a release. “But beyond his capabilities as a pianist, David is a warm and enthusiastic speaker. He is engaging both on and off the piano, which is why he is exactly the right artist to inaugurate this new series.”

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David Fung announced for Bridgehampton 2022 season lineup

Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival 2022 announces David Fung in their season lineup

by Chloe Rabinowitz
May 13, 2022

This summer's Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival will presents 11 concerts from July 24 to August 21 - approaching its pre-pandemic scope. The 11 distinct programs in the 39th season of Long Island's longest-running classical music festival highlight interconnections in music: works by contemporary composers Caroline Shaw, William Bolcom, and Lowell Liebermann inspired by Haydn and Bach; a Ghanaian dance-inspired work by Derek Bermel; and Tzigane-inspired ("Hungarian Gypsy") works by Valerie Coleman and Johannes Brahms, to name a few examples. Throughout the festival, the music of 12 living composers combines with works by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák, Mozart, and Schumann to spotlight musical intersections of time and place.

"Now more than ever, our lives are interconnected," said Bridgehampton Chamber Music Artistic Director Marya Martin, "and music is a space for connection, understanding, and sharing of ideas and values. For this summer's festival, we have built programs of wonderfully rich music that embrace the melding of the here and there and then and now."

As always, the festival's roster of artists comprises one of the best multi-generational groups of chamber musicians to be found anywhere. Led by flutist and festival founder Marya Martin, this summer's BCM musicians are James Austin Smith, oboe; Bixby Kennedy, clarinet; Stewart Rose, horn; Ben Beilman, Stella Chen, Chad Hoopes*, Ani Kavafian, Kristin Lee, Tessa Lark, Anthony Marwood, Amy Schwartz Moretti, Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, violin; Ettore Causa, Matthew Lipman, Melissa Reardon, and Cong Wu, viola; Nick Canellakis, Leland Ko*, Mihai Marica, David Requiro, and Peter Stumpf, cello; Donald Palma, bass; Michael Brown, Zoltán Fejérvári*, David Fung, Gilles Vonsattel, Ying Li*, and Zhu Wang*, piano; Frank Vignola*, guitar; Alan Alda, narrator; and the ensemble Sandbox Percussion*. (Those marked with an asterisk are making their BCM debuts.)

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Read the Chan Centre's Q & A with David Fung

Q & A with Dr. David Fung

Learn about David Fung, a new curator for the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

The UBC School of Music is pleased to welcome Dr. David Fung, who is joining the faculty as Assistant Professor of Piano beginning January 1, 2022. We caught up with Dr. Fung to discuss his background, what excites him most about joining UBC, and that time he had to step in with the Israel Symphony unrehearsed on a moment’s notice.

Chan Centre: Hi David!  What are you most excited about as a new faculty member at UBC?

Dr. David Fung: My “visits” to campus so far have been virtual due to the pandemic. I’m most excited to meet the faculty and students face-to-face as well as explore the campus in person. In particular, I’d like to visit the Museum of Anthropology, see the Musqueam Post in all its glory, and experience the architecture on campus, new and old.

CC: What are you most passionate about as a pianist and educator?

DF: It’s extremely rewarding to see my students grow and help them realize their goals. I’m passionate about inspiring students to search for the beauty in the details and to convey that to the listener on their instrument.

CC: Who are your favourite composers, and what are your favourite works to perform and why?

DF: This might be the most frequently asked question in interviews and by audience members, and it’s probably the most difficult to answer because there’s so much good music! I’m most drawn to music which elucidates aspects of humanity that aren’t easily expressed in words. A few composers I keep returning to are Mozart, Schubert, and Rachmaninov, and I’ve enjoyed exploring works of Grazyna Bacewicz and Florence Price this past year.

"I'm passionate about inspiring students to search for the beauty in the details and to convey that to the listener on their instrument."

Dr. David Fung

CC: What are some of the most memorable concerts you’ve ever performed?

DF: In 2014, I was invited to perform at the opening gala of the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition in Tel Aviv alongside former winners, Roman Rabinovich and Daniil Trifonov. The night before I was due to perform the gala, I was asked to replace an indisposed Robert Levin with the Israel Symphony in Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos on one hour’s notice and no rehearsals. I’d never performed the piece and agreed to sight-read the work. You know the nightmare where you walk on stage having prepared Concerto X, but the orchestra begins playing Concerto Y? This was that nightmare! 😱

CC: Can you tell us about your musical journey and how you became a concert pianist and professor?

DF: I’ll answer this question by sharing a few fun facts about myself:

1. I began my musical journey on the violin at age 5.

2. I started a dual degree in medicine and arts at the University of New South Wales (Sydney) before transferring to the Colburn Conservatory (Los Angeles).

3. I have six tertiary degrees in music. Some might say that’s six too many! 🙃

4. I was inspired to be a teacher in my teens after masterclasses with András Schiff and Leon Fleisher. 

CC: What do you like to spend your time doing outside of piano performance?

DF: I enjoy spending time with my goldendoodle, Cooper. He is a walking ball of fluff and brings me joy every day! I’m passionate about art, objects, and design, and in my spare time, I like frequenting museums and collecting. I mentioned in a previous interview that I’m looking forward to eating my way through Vancouver and exploring its mountains and natural beauty, and these still remain at the top of my list of things to do!

CC: Any new projects in the works that you’re looking forward to?

DF: I have commissions by Samuel Carl Adams, Krists Auznieks, and JP Jofre in the works, and I’m looking forward to performing and recording these pieces in upcoming seasons. I’m particularly excited to be curating the new Steinway Spirio Piano Series at the Chan Centre which launches in spring 2022, especially having previously recorded on Steinway Spirio technology.

CC: What advice do you have for students pursuing a music career?

DF: Be curious: Learn as much as you can about the music you are playing, and immerse yourself in its details. Be curious about the world around you, especially in the field of humanities. When I was in school, I attended every concert I physically could, and those sound waves are still in my DNA. This includes concerts by my classmates from which I learned volumes.

Be kind to yourself: A career in music is a marathon! It takes a lot of no’s to get to a yes. Find joy and fulfillment in the process of creating, rather than in the performance itself. This is what keeps me coming back to the piano, since I always wish my performances could have gone better! Being kind to yourself also means being kind and gracious to others.

Be flexible: It’s important for young musicians to give themselves the permission to be flexible in their goals and to reevaluate them often. The beautiful thing about music is that it is incredibly diverse, and there are infinite ways of creating and communicating art. There isn’t one path to success, and we are in charge of defining what success is for us.

READ THE INTERVIEW

Tchaikovsky Concerto performances in the Bay Area

San Francisco Chronicle: Datebook

By Joshua Kosmin

For Beethoven’s Seventh, famously described by Richard Wagner as “the apotheosis of the dance,” Music Director Marc Taddei has programmed “Rissolty Rossolty,” Ruth Crawford Seeger’s ebullient orchestral treatment of American folk tunes. That is supplemented by “Music for Small Orchestra,” another selection from Crawford Seeger’s brilliant and far too small compositional catalog, and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with the acclaimed pianist David Fung as soloist.

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