Violinist Debra Fong is Concertmaster of the Peninsula Symphony, Associate Concertmaster of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Second Violinist of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. She also performs with Opera San José and Symphony San José. Ms. Fong spends her summers as a first violinist of the Grammy Award-winning Santa Fe Opera Orchestra.
Also a dedicated teacher, Ms. Fong is a Lecturer in Violin and Chamber Music at Stanford University, and she maintains a private violin studio. She is a faculty coach for Young Chamber Musicians, a guest conductor for the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and an annual judge for several young artist concerto competitions. Ms. Fong is a former violin faculty member at The College of William & Mary, The Music Institute of Chicago, and New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School.
Ms. Fong received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Violin Performance, both degrees with Honors and Distinction, from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she studied with Eric Rosenblith, James Buswell, Eugene Lehner, and Louis Krasner. As a student, Ms. Fong had the unique opportunity to study and perform Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” under the tutelage of the composer.
Ms. Fong has been a featured chamber musician at Toronto Summer Music; Bay Chamber Concerts in Maine; Grand Teton Music Festival; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival in Vermont; Taos School of Music; Sarasota Music Festival; and Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut. She has been a guest artist with the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Chicago Chamber Musicians, North American New Music Festival in Buffalo, NY, and the New Music Festival at Santa Clara University. Ms. Fong is an avid proponent of contemporary music and has worked closely with composers such as John Adams, Vivian Fung, Thomas Adès, Kaija Saariaho, Bright Sheng, Adolphus Hailstork, and Gabriela Lena Frank.
Ms. Fong’s discography includes recordings with The Santa Fe Opera (including the Grammy award for Best Opera Recording in 2019), indie pop vocalist Vienna Teng, Stanford Chamber Chorale, composer John Luther Adams, Mannheim Steamroller, and she has performed on numerous film soundtracks. She has performed with a wide range of artists from singer Smokey Robinson, jazz legends Dave Brubeck and Chick Corea, to classical music superstars Itzhak Perlman, Renée Fleming, and Leonard Slatkin.
Ms. Fong is married to cellist Christopher Costanza, and they have an ebullient professional violist child, Ezra (they/them). The family performs together as a string trio and have been featured in recitals in Upstate New York, Santa Fe, throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and online. Ms. Fong plays a Giuseppe Rocca violin kindly on loan from Stanford University’s Harry R. Lange Instrument Collection. In her leisure time, she enjoys playing word games, reading modern fiction, practicing yoga, and seeking out excellent coffee.