Adrian Fung
Music Classical Music Person
Canadian-born cellist Adrian Fung is a founding member of the Afiara String Quartet, winners of the Concert Artist Guild International Competition in New York and top prizes at the Munich ARD and Banff International String Quartet Competitions. With the Quartet, he has performed throughout the Americas and Europe, at such venues as Carnegie Hall’s Zankel and Weill Halls, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Library of Congress in DC, Sao Paulo’s Museum of Modern Art, Munich’s Prinz Regenten Theatre, and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw. As a soloist, he has given recitals in New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Goethe Institute, Montreal’s Pollack Hall, Toronto Centre of the Performing Arts, Living Arts Centre, and Taiwan’s National Concert Hall. He has been the featured soloist with Ensemble 212, Columbia Chamber Players, Oakville Symphony Orchestra, Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Mississauga Symphony. Praised for his “superb” and “brilliant” performance (New York Concert Review), for his virtuosity (San Francisco Classical Voice), and as a “consummate interpreter” (Ontario Arts Review), Adrian was a winner of an Artist Grant from the New York Foundation of the Arts, the Goodrich Award from the National Arts Centre of Canada, and the Artists International Competition in New York. He has performed with the Juilliard, Alexander, and Cecilia String Quartets, Robert Aiken, Atar Arad, Denis Brott, James Campbell, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Anton Kuerti, and Michael Tree.
He has been widely broadcast through Bavarian Radio, CBC Radio 2, Toronto’s Classical 96.3, Denmark Broadcasting, TROS in the Netherlands, San Francisco’s KALW, New York’s WQXR, Rogers Daytime Television, and Bravo TV.
A new music enthusiast, Adrian premiered several works from many composers, including a cello concerto and an amplified piece for solo cello, both written for him by Huck Hodge and commissioned by the International Society for Contemporary Music. With the Afiara Quartet, he has embarked on a project with the Common Sense Composer’s Collective and Cecilia String Quartet, performing and recording eight new quartet works at The Banff Centre. Other highlights include the Afiara’s project with singer/songwriter Kyrie Kristmanson and composer Patrick Carrabre at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, subsequently broadcast by CBC Radio.
Adrian studied cello with Bonnie Hampton, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Fred Sherry, Antonio Lysy, David Hetherington and Susan Gagnon. After receiving diplomas from McGill University and Mannes College of Music, Adrian earned a Bachelor’s from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where he was also a teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. Keen to pass on what has been generously shared by his teachers, Adrian has been invited to teach at Indiana University’s Summer String Academy, San Francisco State University, the Yehudi Menuhin Seminar, Chamber Music of the Rockies, Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute, Orkester Efterskolen in Denmark, University of Alberta, Oakville Suzuki Institute, and the Royal Conservatory of Music.
With a growing passion for arts management, Adrian has been invited, as the RBC Stockey Young Artistic Director, to curate concerts for Parry Sound’s Festival of the Sound in 2012. His concert programs for the festival include inspired programs of the beloved chamber masterworks, but also explore the music of Dinuk Wijeratne, the tabla instrument in newly imagined roles, a rarely performed Bruch Octet, a program focused on the influence and draw of Elvis Presley’s music, and an electric guitar string quintet. Chosen by the Banff Centre’s Artistic Director, Barry Shiffman, to stand in for him during his absence, Adrian coordinated all artistic matters in 2011′s Banff Summer Chamber Music Program and curated the summer chamber music concert series. He has a deep interest in the versatility of chamber music and its strength in collaborating with all other disciplines.