Cello prodigy Zlatomir Fung on his Hong Kong debut, playing with the UK’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and ‘showing off’
- Zlatomir Fung’s grandfather was born and raised in Hong Kong, and the cello prodigy will be playing in the city for the first time on April 17
- Fung, who turned 25 this month, has won numerous awards, and was recently asked to teach at Juilliard School, which he attended on a scholarship
Zlatomir Fung Yung-chi was still in his second year of music school when, aged 20 in 2019, he became the youngest cellist to win first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, one of the world’s most competitive music awards, which is held every four years in Russia.
His prodigious talent was spotted early on. He won a chain of awards as a teenager and then the merit-based Kovner Fellowship to study at the Juilliard School in New York City. Having turned 25 on April 11, he has already been asked to teach in the cello department at his alma mater.
On April 17, he will make his debut in Hong Kong, the city where his paternal grandfather was born and raised.
Performing in the Premiere Performance concert with local pianist Rachel Cheung Wai-ching, Fung has selected a programme featuring Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Janacek and… himself.
Fantasy on Jenufa for cello and piano is his own 2023 adaptation of Czech composer Leos Janacek’s opera Jenufa – an unusual endeavour.
“There was a strong tradition in the 19th century where virtuoso cellist-composers would make arrangements of popular operas at the time by picking the best tunes and the most famous moments and writing variations on them for the cello,” Fung says.
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“The tradition died off in the 20th century. But I became very interested in this project during the pandemic, as many of these pieces were written by cellists who intended to sort of ‘show off’ what they could do with the instrument.”
The coming performance at the Hong Kong City Hall will be the Asian premiere of Fung’s Fantasy on Jenufa. “It’s great to do this kind of intimate recital where everything is a conversation between the piano and the cello.”
Other pieces in the concert includes Robert Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style, which he sees as a “very unusual piece that I’ve known for quite a while”, but a “fun challenge” nonetheless. For the first time, he will attempt Johannes Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in a version for the cello and piano that Yo-Yo Ma recorded some 30 years ago.
Fung’s Bulgarian mother and Chinese father – both mathematicians – provided early music education to their four American children.
Fung began playing the cello when he was three-and-a-half, an unusual choice as most children start with the piano. However, his family did not have a piano at home, he therefore started with “a very small cello”, he says.
For the first seven years, he studied with a patient teacher who placed a heavy focus on making sure he polished every piece he played before moving onto something harder, he says appreciatively.
“By the time I was 10, I hadn’t played that many pieces, but I think I had played them all pretty well.”
Around age 13, he decided that he would become a professional musician. In his words, it was a “crazy decision” but that was what he did.
Today, apart from his touring and teaching commitments, he is also artist-in-residence with the UK’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2023-24 season.
“I feel like I got very lucky – they’re a wonderful orchestra, and getting the chance to work with them multiple times has been really interesting,” Fung says.
“I’ve learned a lot. I think the style of British orchestras in general is very different from American orchestras [which I am more familiar with].”
He says he is pleased to finally meet and work with Cheung, who won the audience prize at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and additional accolades at other major competitions such as the Leeds, Chopin and Geneva international piano competitions.
“As a musician, you hear about people; now, with the internet, you can also hear them so easily. The repertoire I choose is sometimes a bit unusual, and I’m really looking forward to working with her,” he says. The two will go on to perform in Shanghai on April 25.
“Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medal Winner: Zlatomir Fung Cello Recital”, Premiere Performance, Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall, 5 Edinburgh Place, Central, April 17, 7.30pm.
