Michael Kevin Jones
British born cellist Michael Jones started to play at the age of 13, his first teachers being Pauline Ballard and Dulce Haigh Marshall. He studied at Dartington College with Michael Evans before going on to the Royal College of Music where he was a pupil of Joan Dickson. During his time in London he won prizes for solo and chamber music playing, was chosen to perform for the British Royal Family and was awarded a scholarship from the German Government to study cello under the great teacher Johannes Goritzki in Dusseldorf.

While a student in Germany Michael Jones became solo cellist for the German Chamber Academy, playing concerts around the world and in major music festivals such as Salzburg, Lockenhaus and Kuhmo. He continued to study music full time, participating in the solo masterclass courses at the Hindemith Foundation in Switzerland, and studying chamber music with the Amadeus, Vermeer and La Salle Quartets. Tours included China, Europe, the Americas, Australia and the Middle East, as well as recordings with WDR, the BBC and collaborations with well-known artists and groups such as the Moscow Virtuosi, Lindsay Kemp and Carlos Cano.

In 2002 he recorded the complete Bach Suites for Solo Cello on a 1667 Stradivarius Violoncello for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. More recently in July 2007, Jones made his debut concert tour of Japan and the Far East with his cello guitar duo, the only duo of its kind in the world. Resulting from the tour, the duo was invited to perform in China during the olympic year.

Michael has lived in London, Cologne, Madrid and New York. He currently spends his free time in the Andalucian town of Jimena de la Frontera where he has started a cello education centre which serves the Costa del Sol area in southern Spain and Gibraltar.

In 2009 he was awarded the blue moon Swiss audio award for his recording of solo Bach and 2010 marks the start of a new series of recordings both contemporary solo cello music and classical masterpieces.

Other plans for 2010 include concert tours of Canada, the United States, Taiwan, the Balkans, South America and Spain

Henry Wong Doe
“Pianism in a whole different league, namely: art”. These words from Tel Aviv’s Ha’aretz illustrate Henry Wong Doe’s sincerity and passion for music. Since winning “Audience Favorite” prizes at both the Arthur Rubinstein and Busoni International Piano Competitions, Henry continues to engage audiences with creative programming and playing that combines sensitivity with stylistic awareness.

Henry Wong Doe has performed in Carnegie Hall, New York, Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay Singapore, St.Martin-in-the-Fields, London, U.K., the Sydney Opera House in Australia and Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Israel. He has been a featured artist at the Busoni International Piano Festival in Bolzano, Italy, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago, USA and the Brussels Piano Festival in Belgium.

Henry has performed with noted orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Australian Chamber, and Israel Philharmonic, and collaborated with conductors Christopher Hogwood, Mendi Rodan, Fabio Mechetti and Edvard Tchivzel. Appearances on television and radio include BBC Radio 3 (UK), ABC Classics FM and Channel 9 (Australia), Concert FM and TVNZ (New Zealand), WNYC Radio (New York), WFMT Radio (Chicago), WQED Radio (Pittsburgh), RTBF and Canal La Deux (Belgium), and Kolhamusica (The Musical Voice) Israel.

A native of New Zealand, Henry Wong Doe has performed with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Auckland Chamber Orchestra and Christchurch Symphony Orchestras. Working with acclaimed conductors such as as Fabio Mechetti, Michael Christie, Piero Bellugi and Tobias Ringborg, he has performed concerti by Prokofieff, Mozart, Grieg, Stravinsky, Hindemith and Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff. The New Zealand Herald critic William Dart wrote of his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Auckland Philharmonia: “Henry Wong Doe took on its many challenges with eases, totally unruffled by glittering passagework and bringing just the right heft to forests of chords. There was admirable restraint in the Adagio Sostenuto”. In the United States, Henry was invited to perform Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

An avid performer of contemporary music, Henry's debut performance at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2008 featured solo and interactive works for piano and computer-controlled piano. Performing on a Yamaha Disklavier Mark IV, the program included the pioneering 1989 interactive work Eight Sketches - duet for one pianist by Jean-Claude Risset as well as a newly composed interactive work by New York based composed Brendan Adamson. An equally passionate supporter of new music from New Zealand, both his 2008 and 2012 recitals at Weill Recital Hall featured solo and chamber works by composer Gareth Farr.

Henry Wong Doe has released four commercial recordings. His first disc Horizon (2012, Trust Records MMT 2070), of piano and chamber works by Gareth Farr, was featured on New York's WNYC radio “New Sounds” program. His second disc, Five in the Sun (2013 Klavier Records K11193) as a member of the Keystone Chamber Players consists of 20th century chamber works for woodwind instruments and piano. His third release Landscape Preludes (2014, Rattle Records RAT D046), a set of 12 short piano works by New Zealand composers received critical acclaim in New Zealand and USA. Jed Distler of Classics Today gave the disc a 9/10 rating for both artistic and sound quality, writing “the selections are appreciably varied, well crafted for piano…[Wong Doe] mastered the notes and assimilated the music to the highest standards.” His fourth disc, Pictures on Rattle Records features Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and a newly commissioned work a zigzagged gaze by Eve de Castro-Robinson, written in response to ten art pieces from the Wallace Arts Trust arts collection. The album was released in August 2017 and was a finalist in the 2018 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards (Best Classical Artist).

Most recently, Henry was awarded a Creative NZ Arts Grant for his latest commissioning and recording project, Perspectives. This project will be recorded and released on Rattle Records in 2023, and aims to illustrate in music the experiences of six New Zealand composers over the last two years. Henry will also be releasing his first solo and chamber recordings for the Madrid based label HR Recordings in 2022.

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Henry Wong Doe received his early training from Susan Smith-Gaddis, followed by Bryan Sayer at the University of Auckland. In the United States, he received a Masters degree from Indiana University Bloomington, studying with Evelyne Brancart and Leonard Hokanson, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School, studying with Joseph Kalichstein. His doctoral dissertation “Musician or Machine: The Player piano and composers of the Twentieth Century” examined the influence of the player piano on the works of Stravinsky, Hindemith, Nancarrow and Ligeti. A passionate educator as well as performer, Henry Wong Doe serves on the music faculty as Professor of Piano and Keyboard Area Chair at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.