MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Jonathan Wong (he/him) is a Toronto-based conductor, keyboardist, clarinettist, singer, and educator. His wide-ranging work in concert, opera, musical theatre, and educational contexts is tied together by a love for music’s communicative power and its ability to build communities in an inimitable way. Mostly recently, he was MD/Keys 1 for the St. Michael’s College Troubadours’ February 2020 production of Guys & Dolls at Hart House Theatre (Toronto).

As a conductor, he is Artistic Director of Ruckus: The University of Toronto Scarborough Campus Alumni & Community Choir, Artistic Director of the Serenata Singers (Scarborough, ON), Associate Conductor of the Toronto Chinese Orchestra, and Choral Director of the Northumberland Orchestra and Choir. He was twice a conducting fellow with Drs. Mark Hopkins and Gillian MacKay and the Denis Wick Canadian Wind Orchestra, Apprentice Conductor with Orchestra Toronto, and a recipient of the College Band Directors National Association Mike Moss Conducting Study Grant. In opera, Jonathan was a 2020-21 RBC Future Launch Emerging Artist Fellow with the Association for Opera in Canada and was previously Artistic Director and Assistant Conductor of the Toronto Lyric Opera Centre, where he created productions of Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Handel’s Semele that featured undergraduate students at the University of Toronto performing alongside professionals.  His principal conducting teachers have been Dr. Gillian MacKay and Ivars Taurins.

Jonathan’s keyboard playing covers both modern and historical keyboards. He works regularly as a solo and collaborative keyboardist and continuo player. He has studied harpsichord and organ with Charlotte Nediger, Kevin Komisaruk, and Olivier Fortin.

Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Music with Honours (music education, clarinet) and an Advanced Certificate in Performance, Early Music (harpsichord) from the University of Toronto.