IUP piano professor Henry Wong Doe recently completed a three-concert tour of New Zealand, performing on July 20, 21, and August 3, 2024. He performed two separate programs at three cities in the North Island: Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast, the capital city of Wellington, and Warkworth (one hour north of Auckland).
Wong Doe performed two selections from his recent commissioning/recording project Perspectives, alongside more familiar works by Haydn, Mussorgsky, Bach/Busoni, Beethoven, and Chopin.
Writing about his performance of Modest Mussorgsky’s "Pictures at an Exhibition," Peter Mechen (Middle-C, Wellington) wrote:
“‘Baba Yaga’ was simply breathtakingly done with almost blindingly brilliant finger-work, with the central part’s eeriness and menace strongly drawn! Some pianists hold back with the introduction of the Great Gate of Kiev theme, as if hearing it from a distance the first time (which I quite like), but Wong Doe gave it his all straight away! Both the succeeding priest’s hymn and the massive bell strokes were begun softly, but the re-entry of the Promenade theme caught us up in its growing excitement until it all seemed nothing but great festive bell sounds, a ceremony as all-embracingly spacious and reverberant as one could want at the end.”
Read the full concert review.