Officially commencing her music studies on the viola at the age of fifteen, San Francisco-born violist Bella T. Fong has proved herself as a dynamic and diverse musician with performances across the San Francisco Bay Area and in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, and Prague. Ms. Fong has received first prize in the American Protege International Strings and Piano Competition and the Music Teacher’s Association of California VOCE for Bloch’s Suite Hébraïque, Reger’s Suite No. 1 in G Minor, Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G minor Op.57, and Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No.2 Op. 81. Ms. Fong has additionally received high marks in the Northern California Junior Bach Festival, US Open Music Competition, and Great Composers Competitions for Best Bach Performance and Best Shostakovich Performance and performed the Alexander String Quartet’s prelude concert as part of Young Chamber Musician’s Nebula Trio. 

In previous summers, Ms. Fong has won off-campus concerts in the Meadowmount School of Music (2018) with Schumann’s String Quartet No. 1, Op. 41 and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2. In 2017, she served as assistant principal in both the Curtis Summerfest Young Artist Program and El Camino Youth Orchestra’s Western Europe concert tour. Under the tutelage of Boston Symphony Orchestra members, Ms. Fong participated in the Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s 2016 50th anniversary season. She additionally served as assistant principal of Stanford Youth Orchestra Summer Concert Series. 

Ms. Fong has worked closely with Pei Ling Lin, Jessica T. Chang, Patricia McCarty, Hye Min Choi, Sharon Wei, and Toby Appel, among others, and has performed in masterclasses for Peter Zazofsky, Roberto Diaz, the Juilliard String Quartet, Michael Zaretsky, and Don Erhlich. An avid academic and instructor, Ms. Fong is a Boston University Fine Arts Scholarship recipient, varsity debater, English and standardized testing tutor, California Scholarship Federation Gold Sealbearer, former Shield and Scroll Honor and Service Society member, and former chamber music coach, violin/viola teacher, and teaching assistant for her secondary school’s performing arts department.