Musical prodigies, they say, are getting younger and younger. Nine year old violinist Sammy Wong lives in Waterloo, and is poised to shake up the world of classical music.
Sammy first picked up a violin at the age of four, and made his public performance debut at the age of six in a one-hour music special on CBC Radio. He’s since performed with the Stratford Symphony Orchestra and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and has been invited to play at New York’s Carnegie Hall in January 2026.
Local audiences can catch him in performance at a charity concert on November 9.
Sammy Wong
Sammy Wong was born in Waterloo. By the age of seven, alongside with a budding performing career, he’d already won several RCM grade ten First Prize awards at Kiwanis Music Festivals and other competitions across Ontario, including the Music Festival Guelph, North York Music Festival, and the OMFA (Ontario Music Festival Association) competition at age eight.
He’s also taken home prizes at the Stockholm International Music Competition, Swiss International Music Competition, Vivaldi International Competition, and the Concours International de Musique Jean-Philippe Rameau in France, among others.
Sammy has developed a repertoire that includes concertos, sonatas, and partitas, and has also performed pops concerts with The Lightfoot Band, made up of members of the late Gordon Lightfoot’s concert and touring band.
The young musician performs on a 320-year-old instrument created by violin maker Giovanni Tononi on loan via a private donor. Tononi was a violin maker who worked in Bologna, Italy, around 1700, where he was born. He learned his craft from his father Giovanni, and is known as one of the finest makers of the period.
Sounds of Seasons: A Musical Celebration with Sammy Wong (November 9)
Presented by Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of Music, Sammy will be playing with the Waterloo Region Orchestra.
The concert is a fundraiser to support music education for underprivileged youth in the Waterloo region.
The program includes Spring and Winter from Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons, Paganiniana (Variations) For Violin Solo, a virtuosic work by Nathan Milstein, and Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3 for violin and piano.
- Find tickets and details for the November 9 concert [HERE].
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