About

Theresa Wong is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and intermedia artist active at the intersection of composition, improvisation, and the synergy of multiple disciplines. As a cellist and vocalist, Wong has forged a unique vocabulary on her instruments through extensive explorations in new playing techniques, alternative tunings, and the timbral merging of singing and playing together. Her primary interest lies in the transformative potential of performance for both the artist and receiver alike through the transmission of vibration and resonance.

A 2024 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition, her works include Fluency of Trees for cello and voice, which premiered at the Other Minds Festival, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees, commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill, and The Unlearning, a multi-media song cycle inspired by Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War etchings, released on Tzadik. Her long-standing collaboration with Long String Instrument inventor Ellen Fullman includes Harbors, released on room40 and chosen as one of Wire’s top 50 releases of 2020. Their most recent work, Soundless, extends Wong’s string explorations into just intonation electric guitar and electronics, and has been presented at the Volume Festival in Sidney, MOCA Los Angeles, and Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn.

Recent commissions include works for San Francisco Girls Chorus, Peninsula Women's Chorus, NakedEye Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Del Sol Quartet, and Splinter Reeds. She has shared her work internationally at venues including Cafe Oto and Barbican Centre in London, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Sydney Festival, and The Stone in New York City.

Wong is a 2012 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow and the founder of fo'c'sle, a record label dedicated to releasing adventurous music from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Originally active in the field of design, she embarked on her current artistic path after encountering experimental music while working as a designer in Venice, Italy. Wong is a first-generation Chinese American born in Schenectady, New York and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.