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March 6th, 2008 | 7:30 pm Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall The CUNY Graduate Center 365 5th Avenue, NYC Piano Etudes (1996) | Cynthia Lee Wong from a collection of childhood works 1. With Dad's 12-Tone Melody 2. Mirror Etude 3. Slow Etude 4. Something Wong Cynthia Lee Wong, piano I wrote these Etudes in 8th grade as a composition student at Walnut Hill School. It was my first time attending an arts high school and marks a change in style from my previously-tonal works to a more chromatic idiom. The Etudes also mark my discovery and love of the Chopin Etudes, which I had then begun to learn. Although my style is much different, I still enjoy playing these pieces today. Cynthia Lee Wong has received international acclaim as a unique and promising personality among the new generation of composers. Her music has been performed in Spain, France, Canada, Russia, Bulgaria, Germany, and the United States. Commissioned twice by musica viva and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, she has received praise for her "shamelessly-beautiful" music as well as her devotion toward "not only the avant-garde audience, but all classical enthusiasts or indeed all music lovers" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Past orchestral commissions include works for New Juilliard Ensemble and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory Orchestra. Her most recent commission, Songs of Gernika, is dedicated to her Basque friend Irantzu Agirre, who premiered the work on February 23, 2008 at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall. Wong is a graduate of the accelerated Bachelor-Master program at the Juilliard School. She studied composition with Milton Babbitt, Samuel Adler, and Larry Bell as well as piano with Tatyana Dudochkin and Martin Canin. In 2006, she joined the faculty at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. Currently, Wong is a Chancellor's Fellow at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where she studies with David Del Tredici. return to PAST CONCERTS