Back Story

Brad Wong

Director Fontana Chamber Arts

When Brad Wong retired from overseeing the School of Music at Western Michigan University in 2020, he didn't plan to wade back into those administrative waters. "I was happy being very relaxed," Wong, 67, admits with a laugh. But after David Baldwin, former director of Fontana Chamber Arts, became ill and could no longer run the music series, Wong, who was serving on Fontana's board of directors, was approached about taking the role.

“It wasn’t on my radar,” Wong says. “Even when we started talking about needing someone to replace David, I never thought, ‘Oh, I can do that’ or ‘I want to do that.’ I just thought, ‘OK, who can I recommend?’ So, they did have to convince me a little bit.” Wong became Fontana's director in May but had been involved as part of Fontana for more than 40 years. His late wife, Betsy, was the artistic administrator for the organization until she died in 2017. "Accepting the position was really a labor of love — from my love of chamber music as a medium, my love for Fontana as an organization, my wife's connection to it, and my love for the Kalamazoo community," Wong says. How did you get your start in music?

In our school's band program (Wong grew up in Roseville, north of Detroit), everybody started learning to play song flute in fourth grade. At midyear,

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Brian Powers