Jesse Wong, Music Director

Jesse Wong ’12, an undergraduate concentrator in Music living in Pforzheimer House, will be serving as the 44th Music Director of the Bach Society Orchestra. Having studied conducting for four years, Jesse has been involved with many musical organizations and productions at Harvard. In 2009-10, he directed and conducted two successive shows produced by the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players: The Sorcerer and The Pirates of Penzance. He has also assistant directed full productions by the Dunster House Opera Society (Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in 2009) and the Lowell House Opera Society (Leonard Bernstein’s Candide in 2011), and has directed opera scenes for the biannual Lowell House Opera Scenes concerts, including scenes from Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Idomeneo, Norma, The Ghosts of Versailles, Little Women, and La Traviata. Jesse has spent time abroad studying conducting with programs such as the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France (with Maestro Mark Shapiro) and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s Spoleto Program in Spoleto, Italy (with Maestro Mark Gibson). Other teachers and mentors include Edward Jones, Federico Cortese, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Besides conducting, Jesse has participated in many other organizations, including directing the Classical Music department of WHRB, the Harvard radio station, singing as a Choral Fellow with the Harvard University Choir, and singing with the Harvard Krokodiloes, with performances at Sanders Theater, Alice Tully Hall in New York, and locations around the world.

Growing up in Fairfax, Virginia (graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology), Jesse was trained as a classical pianist from an early age, studying for 12 years with Nancy O’Neill Breth. As a soloist, Jesse competed in and won many competitions, including the Beethoven Society of America’s Maria Fisher Piano Competition, the Friday Morning Music Club’s Henbest Piano Competition, and the Third Annual Lee University International Piano Competition. He has had engagements with numerous orchestras, including performances of Franz Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with the Capital Symphony Orchestra in 2008, Bela Bartok’s Third Piano Concerto with the Little River Symphony Orchestra in 2007, and Frederic Chopin’s First Piano Concerto (mvmt. I) with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2006, as a winner of their annual Young Soloists’ Competition. Jesse has also participated in many summer programs, including the International Institute of Young Musicians in 2004, the Eastern Music Festival in 2005, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival in 2006. He continues to play piano as a fluent sight-reader and accompanist for vocalists and instrumentalists and also studies jazz composition and improvisation.

Besides music, Jesse enjoys languages, museums, ultimate, and public service. He can be reached at jcwong@fas.harvard.edu or jesseplayspiano@gmail.com.

View a list of all past music directors of the Bach Society Orchestra.