A native of Hong Kong based in Los Angeles, Jenny Wong is currently the associate artistic director of the Grammy Award–winning Los Angeles Master Chorale. Recent conducting engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Industry, Long Beach Opera, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Phoenix Chorale and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. Next season, Wong makes her debut with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and returns to Pasadena Symphony and Pops. In 2021 Wong was one of nine national recipients of OPERA America’s inaugural Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors. Staged and opera works include Peter Sellars’s staging of Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro (Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Festival Internacional Cervantino, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico and in the United States), the opera Sweet Land by Du Yun and Raven Chacon (2021 Award for Best New Opera by the Music Critics’ Association) and Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire and Kate Soper’s Voices from the Killing Jar with Long Beach Opera in collaboration with Wild Up. Under Wong’s baton, the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s performance of Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir was named one of “Ten Notable Performances and Recordings of 2022” by Alex Ross in the New Yorker.
As chorus master, Wong has prepared ensembles for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Susanna Mälkki, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Jaime Martín, Maria Guinand, Eric Whitacre, and Music Academy of the West, including a recording of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (winner of the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance) and the U.S. premiere of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion. Wong was assistant producer of the Master Chorale’s latest album, Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil, on Signum Classics.
Jenny Wong won two consecutive world champion titles at the World Choir Games 2010 and the International Johannes Brahms Choral Competition 2011 conducting the Diocesan Girls’ School Choir from Hong Kong. She has been a conducting fellow for the Oregon Bach Festival, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Distinguished Concerts International New York and Hong Kong SingFest. Wong received her doctor of musical arts and master of music degrees from the University of Southern California. She holds an undergraduate degree in vocal performance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
