Praised for his “ravishing and simply gorgeous” performances in the 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, Mr. Fung 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, Mr. Fung has collaborated with the Israel, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Orpheus, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Mr. Fung’s highly acclaimed debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival was “everything you could wish for” (Cleveland Classical), and he was further praised as an “agile and alert interpreter of Mozart’s crystalline note-spinning” (The Plain Dealer). In the following week, he performed Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at the Beijing National Stadium for their Olympic Summer Festival. In 2021, Mr. Fung made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut partnering with Yuja Wang and Gustavo Dudamel following his performances with the Detroit Symphony celebrating the Orchestra Hall Centennial. In addition to the West Coast Premiere of Chen Qigang’s Piano Concerto, “Er Huang”, with the San Francisco Symphony, other recent solo engagements include performances with the Albany Symphony, Arkansas Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Israel Symphony, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Marin Symphony, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the National Taiwan Symphony, Niagara Symphony, New Haven Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, San Diego Symphony, Southwest Florida Symphony, Sun Valley Symphony, Symphony Tacoma, Tampere Philharmonic, and Xiamen Philharmonic, as well as the major orchestras in Australia, including the Melbourne, Queensland, and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, Mr. Fung is a frequent guest artist at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide. Notable festival appearances include Aspen, Blossom, Caramoor, Edinburgh, Hong Kong Arts, Ottawa, Ravinia, and Tippet Rise. At his Edinburgh International Festival debut, the Edinburgh Guide described Mr. Fung as being “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, including the Beijing Concert Hall, Guangzhou Opera House, Hong Kong Town Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Taiwan National Concert Hall, and Tianjin Grand Theater. Notable collaborations include performances with the Brentano, Dover, Jupiter, and Verona Quartets.
In August 2020, the Steinway and Sons Label released Mr. Fung’s Transcendent Beethoven, which was featured on Apple Music’s Best of Beethoven, a list of outstanding releases of the composer during the 250th anniversary of his birth. The album follows the label’s acclaimed 2019 release of Mr. Fung’s first installment of the complete Mozart sonatas. Fung’s Mozart album was called “undeniably bold” (AllMusic Guide) and praised by Boston’s WCRB as “heartbreaking”, adding that “Fung relishes the art of exploring Mozart’s characters – giving them freedom to breathe, and casting them in darkness and light to help reveal their humanity.” Mr. Fung can also be heard on more than a dozen accoladed releases by Pentatone, Orchid, Genuin, Yarlung, and Naxos.
Mr. Fung garnered international attention as a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the Arthur Rubinstein Piano International Masters Competition in Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv, he was further distinguished by the Chamber Music and Mozart Prizes, awarded in areas in which Mr. Fung has a passionate interest. He was the first piano graduate of the prestigious Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles where he studied with John Perry, going on to work with Peter Frankl and Claude Frank at Yale University, and Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover. In 2002, he won the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award while studying with Margaret Hair in Sydney and has received further artistic guidance from piano luminaries including András Schiff, Alfred Brendel, and Leon Fleisher. Making his home in Vancouver and New York City, Mr. Fung serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the University of British Columbia and is a curator at the Chan Center for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. Mr. Fung is a Steinway Artist.