Stephen Hung 熊韋皓

Stephen Hung is primarily a pianist with a keen interest in J.S. Bach’s music and Baroque music in general. He studied with Colin Stone and Daniel-Ben Pienaar at London’s Royal Academy of Music and also had lessons on the harpsichord and the organ there. During his time at the Royal Academy, he was awarded the Harriet Cohen Bach Prize and multiple academic prizes. Since graduating in 2013, he has transcribed and published a collection of Bach’s organ, choral and violin pieces for the piano. Hung performs regularly, both as a soloist and as a member of chamber music groups including the TimeCrafters, the Early Music Society of Hong Kong, and Song is Being. Some notable performances include Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with the TimeCrafters at The University of Hong Kong’s Musuem and Art Gallery in May 2019, and a concert at the Musica Antiqua Takamatsu in Japan with Song is Being in February 2019. In addition to building a comprehensive repertoire of Bach’s solo keyboard works, Hung has been exploring other formats of performance, including jukebox concerts, concerts synchronised with video animations (collaborating with the visual-artist Oychir), and concerts that collaborate with painters and photographers.

Aside from performing, Hung is a columnist for the website Gooclass and Music Valley. He has previously written reviews, interviews and articles for the magazines Artplus and Vantage. In 2018, he was invited to give a talk on Bach’s two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier at The University of Hong Kong’s ‘Music in Words’ series.

熊韋皓畢業於英國皇家音樂學院鋼琴系，並曾學習彈奏古鍵琴及管風琴。他特別熱衷於巴赫的音樂，對編曲亦有濃厚興趣，迄今為鋼琴改編了多首原屬管風琴、小提琴及清唱劇的音樂並印成了曲集。熊氏活躍於室樂演奏，曾多次參與「時．刻室樂」及香港早期音樂協會的演出，並於2019年2月隨「念茲在茲」到日本參與高松市國際古樂祭的表演；另外亦不時作獨奏演出，過去的演出曲目包括巴赫的整套二聲部及三聲部練習曲、《平均律》全集及「巴赫點唱機」。除了以傳統的方式表演，熊氏亦積極探索以其他形式把音樂帶給聽眾，於2018及2019年曾數次與視覺藝術家愛卡合作上演《兔仔的圖象琴譜》。

演出以外，熊氏亦有為網站 Gooclass、樂人谷及音樂雜誌 Vantage 寫專欄，亦曾獲邀請於2018年在香港大學的「樂語融融」講座系列分享對巴赫兩套《平均律》的一些見解。