Biographical Info

Joseph Tong has established a reputation as one of the most versatile and imaginative pianists of his generation. He studied at Wells Cathedral School, Cambridge University and at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Christopher Elton. Much in demand as a soloist, duo pianist and chamber musician, Joseph made his Wigmore Hall recital debut in 1997 as winner of the Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award and now gives regular recitals throughout the UK and Europe.

Joseph Tong has been particularly associated with the piano music of Jean Sibelius, having recorded three discs of a complete cycle for the Quartz label to critical acclaim and performing regularly in Finland over recent years. He has twice been invited to play at the Korpo Sibelius Festival, taking part in a Sibelius piano ‘marathon’ with five other pianists in 2019, and has given several recitals on the composer’s original Steinway at Ainola. Joseph has also performed at the Helsinki Musiikkitalo (Camerata Hall), Hämeenlinna City Hall, the Sibelius Museum in Turku and, most recently, at the 2024 Joensuu Music Festival.
Other recent projects have included a new commission from the British composer David Matthews, a set of Five Trees which Joseph premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in 2022. He also performed the new work at the Sibelius Museum in Turku as part of a collaboration with the Åbo University Foundation, recording a third album of Sibelius’s piano music which was released in 2023.

Joseph has made several critically acclaimed recordings as a soloist and chamber musician including a disc of Schumann, released in 2019 on the Quartz label, which was awarded Instrumental Choice in BBC Music Magazine. Much in demand as a collaborative pianist, his recording of Sibelius works for violin and piano with the British violinist Fenella Humphreys on Resonus Classics was selected as ‘Chamber Choice’ in BBC Music Magazine in 2022 and featured on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review programme. Joseph has also made piano duet recordings of Schubert, Debussy and McCabe in his longstanding duo with Waka Hasegawa, with whom he performed at Wigmore Hall in London,
at Music Festivals including Cheltenham, Buxton, York and Oundle as well as in Japan and USA. He also performs regularly with his brother Daniel, having appeared on Radio 3’s In Tune together and giving recent piano duet recitals at Conway Hall in London, St David’s Hall Cardiff, the Elgar Concert Hall, Birmingham University, and the Laidlaw Music Centre, University of St Andrews.

In 2022 he returned to Wigmore Hall to give a solo recital featuring Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, marking 200 years since the work was written. Other recent highlights have included solo recitals in Spain and Germany including the Sendesaal in Bremen and Kloster Konzerte in St. Blasien, St John’s Smith Square, London, St George’s Bristol, Romsey Abbey, and the Presteigne Festival in Wales.
A passionate advocate for new music, Joseph gave the world premiere of Lara Poe’s Koivunrungot Kaarella at Presteigne last summer and has recently commissioned a new work, The Willows Suite, from the Finnish pianist-composer Terhi Dostal.

Joseph was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2008 and is a music adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals. He first joined the faculty of the Chetham’s International Piano Summer School in 2019 and is delighted to be returning this summer. Joseph Tong is one of the senior piano tutors at Wells Cathedral School and is also co-ordinator of the Wells International Piano Summer School.