ABOUT
Baritone Michael Cheng hails from Hong Kong and has been in much demand as both a soloist and a chorister in many local and overseas performances. He is currently based in Long Island, New York.
Mr. Cheng recently debuted the role of Mr. Gedge in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring in Spring 2022. He also sang as the roles of Enrico in Haydn's L'isola disabitata in 2021 and Marquis de la Force in Poulenc's Dialogue des Carmélites in 2020 with Stony Brook Opera. He has performed scenes from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte as Papageno, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro as Count Almaviva, and Mozart’s Così fan tutte as Guglielmo. He has also performed Handel’s Messiah with the Stony Brook University Orchestra as the bass soloist and guest conductor in 2019.
As an avid concert singer, Mr. Cheng appeared as a bass soloist in Coronation Mass in C major by Mozart, Lord Nelson Mass by Haydn, Suite Nordestina by R. Miranda, Chansons françaises by Poulenc, Rejoice in the Lord Alway by Purcell, and Magnificat by Vivaldi. Serving as the associate conductor of Hong Kong Baptist University Christian Choir from 2014 to 2018, he performed with the choir in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. He joined the UK performance tour with Cantoría Hong Kong at King’s College Chapel of Cambridge, the Royal Holloway University of London, and BBC Broadcasting House in 2016. He premiered The Seven Deadly Sins, a song cycle for soprano, baritone, and piano, by Hong Kong composer Yu-Sze Melody Ng in May 2019. Michael can be heard in the “Quotation of Queries: Choral Encounters of Hong Kong, China, and the Distant West” with the Cantoría Hong Kong (Conductor: Prof. John Winzenburg) released on Navona Records in April 2020.
Mr. Cheng has performed in various performances at the Hong Kong Arts Festival including ‘The Dream of Red Chamber’, ‘Hong Kong Odyssey,’ ‘The Suppliant Women,’ and ‘Madame White Snake.’ He served as an assistant vocal coach of K. Wah Opera Hong Kong Children Summer School in 2018. He is now serving as the bass section leader in Setauket Presbyterian Church and teaching assistant of the music department at Stony Brook University.
Mr. Cheng obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Music with first-class honours from Hong Kong Baptist University. He was selected as an outstanding student of the Arts Faculty and received numerous scholarships. His major voice teachers included Jimmy Chan and Siu-Kwan Chan. He participated in vocal masterclasses of Lidia Vinyes Curtis, Valentin Peytchinov, and Michael Halliwell.
Mr. Cheng is pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University, where he has completed his Master's degree in Voice Performance. He studies voice under the tutelage of Dr. Jeremy Little, and he has coached with Daniel Beckwith. He was generously supported by the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme and he received the title of “Hong Kong Scholar” by the HKSAR Government in 2019.
