Professor Michael Ma

Dip (Curtis), Grad(New School of Music, Philadelphia), Professor (Fu Jen Catholic University of Taiwan), Head of APA Strings (School of Music)

Born in Vienna of Chinese parents, Michael Ma was taught the violin initially by his father before being accepted at age 14 to the Curtis Institute and the New School of Music, Philadelphia, to study under Ivan Galamian and Adolph Brodsky. Upon graduating, he began performing with the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia and founded the New Art String Quartet which toured throughout Europe, United States and the Middle East.

He has appeared frequently as soloist, and held the position of concertmaster with many orchestras including the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, the Mainly Mozart Festival, San Diego, and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. Prior to his appointment as Head of Strings at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 1996, he was Professor of Violin at the University of Oklahoma.

Professor Ray Wang

Dip(Curtis), Professor (Fu Jen Catholic University of Taiwan)

Artistic Consultant

Ray Wang, who is currently serving as Head of Junior Music Department and Senior Lecturer (Strings) at the HKAPA joined the Academy in 1994. He has performed throughout the musical centers and festivals in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. His performances have taken him also to Chicago, Cremona, Florence, London, Luxembourg, New York, Saarbrucken, Segovia and Vancouver.

He is an active chamber musician, and is a founding member of the Hong Kong Virtuosi, Canzone Trio and New Art String Quartet in Hong Kong; which received support from the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong Music Fund and Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

He was previously a music faculty member of the Baptist University and Chinese University of Hong Kong; other teaching activities included Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Australia, Fu Jen Catholic University of Taiwan and Wuhan Conservatory, Xinghai Conservatory, Central Conservatory of Music in China.

His students have enjoyed a wide range of successful careers in music, and have won top prizes in such cello competitions as the 1994 International Heran Violoncello Competition, the 2001 Hong Kong Competition for Young Asian Musicians, the 2002 International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians as well as the National Cello Competition of China in 1997, 2000 and 2004.

Dr. David Chung

Artistic Consultant

David Chung performs extensively on a variety of historic and modern keyboard instruments to critical acclaim. His concert activities have taken him to many cities across Europe, North America and Asia. He was educated at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reading music and French, and Cambridge University, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on 17th-century French keyboard music. He also holds the Concert Recital Diploma (Premier Prix) from the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His scholarly contributions include a critical edition of keyboard arrangements of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s orchestral music (UT Orpheus, 2004) and articles in such journals as Early Music, Early Keyboard Journal, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music and Music and Letters. His recordings range across French harpsichord music and stylus phantasticus works by Bach and his contemporaries. Chung is currently Associate Professor of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University.