Violinist Kerson Leong maintained his studies alongside the start of an international performing life, and invitations to lead master classes have come frequently. Born February 26, 1997, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, he grew up with a physicist father and has sustained a curiosity about the links between physics and music, particularly the acoustics involved in violin making. He began violin lessons at age four under Calvin Sieb, then concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. From 2005 through 2009 he captured the grand prize at the Canadian Music Competition five years running, an achievement that opened the door to further successes, among them first prize at the 2010 Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists. The award created European engagements, and by the middle of the decade Leong appeared regularly on prominent stages. His first recording, the 2016 Analekta release Bis, featured pianist Philip Chiu.
Leong pursued additional training through a sequence of mentors, studying with Patinka Kopec in the Canadian National Arts Centre Young Artist Program and also working with Jonathan Crow and Laurence Kayaleh. Between 2015 and 2019 he held an artist-in-residence post at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel under the guidance of Augustin Dumay. In 2016 he gave the premiere of John Rutter’s Visions for violin, chorus, and orchestra with the composer’s Aurora Orchestra, later recording the piece under Rutter’s baton and presenting it in London, New York, and Hong Kong. During the 2018–2019 season he performed with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, and he appeared at the G7 summit held in Charlevoix, Quebec. On the Alpha label he issued a 2021 album containing Eugène Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for solo violin, followed in 2023 by a recording of the Britten and Bruch violin concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra led by Patrick Hahn. Leong has also conducted classes or master classes at Indiana University, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the University of Ottawa, and additional schools.
