Good friend and long time community cultural worker Leon Sun's submissions to the Day in the Life of Asian Pacific Islander America project of Smithsonian's APA program. I am honored to be one of his photo subjects! Click here to see his flickr page!

The Francis Wong Unit featuring Wong on saxophone, Karl Evangelista, guitar, John-Carlos Perea, bass, Karen Stackpole, drums, and guest Melody Takata, will perform at 1 pm on Saturday May 17 at the 2014 Asian Heritage Street Celebration. Admission Free. Click here for details.

The Francis Wong Unit featuring Wong, Karen Stackpole, John-Carlos Perea, and guest Yangqin Zhao will perform 3 - 3:30 pm and 4 - 4:30 pm on Saturday May 3 in Joice Alley between Clay and Sacramento around the corner from the CHSA Museum at 965 Clay St. as part of festivities including dragon dancing, dumpling making, line dancing, and games that day to kick off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2014 in San Francisco Chinatown. Read on... http://www.chsa.org/event/joice-alley-celebration-cameron-carnival/

Berkeley Arts - Thursday, March 27, 2014 8 pm - 10 pm 2133 University Ave., Berkeley, CA

Ben Goldberg (clarinet) and Francis Wong (saxophone), veterans of the Bay Area Creative Music Community over the past three decades, bring together intertwined and parallel musical histories and language into a evening of spontaneous discourse. For more information on Berkeley Arts visit http://www.berkeleyartsfestival.com/

The Year of the Horse is in full stride! Had really nice performances at the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum last Saturday with the Dragon Dance by Kei Lun Martial Arts, today with Yangqin Zhao at Chinese Progressive Association's New Year celebration and the reception for the 2014 Day of Remembrance at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California with Wesley Ueunten rendering hole hole bushi work songs from Hawai'i. This past week went to Chicago to work on a recording project with Melody Takata and Tatsu Aoki and last week was on a panel with Lenora Lee and Eric Koziol at Stanford University's Institute for Diversity in the Arts! Two weeks ago worked with dancer/choreographer Lenora Lee in directing Cameron House youth in an interdisciplinary work as part of their Visual and Performing Arts Festival. Stay tuned for Asian Improv Arts's ImprovisAsians 2014! March 3 - 7 at San Francisco State University and Lenora Lee's The Making of The Escape and Rescued Memories: NY Stories at CHSA March 8. Whoa! Another productive year is under way.

I want to thank everyone for your interest in my work and activities this past year! It was a very busy and productive year. I am especially proud of the premiere of my Miyoshi Sketches premiering at the de Young Museum back in May, the remount of my Diaspora Tale #2: 1969 at the Berkeley Art Museum in September, and the November premiere of Lenora Lee's The Escape and Rescued Memories: NY Stories at the de Young for which I produced the soundscore with Tatsu Aoki, Min Xiao-Fen and Jonathan Chen. Plenty of really wonderful moments as well performing with collaborators Jon Jang (Chinatown Music Festival in August), Yangqin Zhao (Melody of China's 20th Anniversary Concert on November 24) and Karl Evangelista (Taglish at APAture 2013). November was capped off with a trip to Poznan, Poland to pay tribute to arts organizer Wojtek Juszczak as part of the Made in Chicago Festival in an ensemble led by Chicago luminaries Mwata Bowden and Tatsu Aoki.  This also was the occasion for the release of my second trio CD recorded in Poland featuring Tatsu and NY based drummer Chad Taylor entitled Wojtek Trio, also a tribute to Wojtek. Thanks again for all of your support!

I am excited to be a guest artist in Melody of China's upcoming concert at Old First Church on November 24 at 4 pm! Joining me as guest collaborators with this leading San Francisco Chinese instrumental music ensemble under the direction of Yangqin Zhao will be Jon Jang, Marcus Shelby and Deszon Claiborne. Click here for more details. 

Last weekend was a blast! Lenora Lee's The Escape/Rescued Memories drew capacity audiences and there was a whole lot of folks in de Young Museum's Wilsey Court hearing my Trio SF ensemble. Playing with Tatsu Aoki and Deszon Claiborne was an incredible creative journey!

I am honored to be music director for Lenora Lee Dance's upcoming works The Escape and Rescued Memories! This will be her most ambitious work yet, which has been graced by the contributions of dozens of performers, designers, and community members from the Bay Area, New York, and Chicago, making the project truly national in scope! In our presentations today in Wesley Ueunten's classes at San Francisco State University today it was really exciting to see the footage that was shot in NY Chinatown with the music the ensemble recorded at NY's Asia Society.

"Rescued Memories: New York Stories" video shoot clips

I hope you can join us for one of the performances and share in the inspiration, excitement, and fun!