MUSIC & PERFORMANCE
Theodor read Music at Clare College Cambridge, where he was awarded the Royalton Kisch Prize for academic excellence and the Donald Wort Prize for the highest final audition mark of his year. He then completed a postgraduate degree at the Royal Academy of Music where he studied violin with Maurice Hasson, performed in masterclasses for Maxim Vengerov and Levon Chillingirian, and graduated with Distinction for "an outstanding final recital".
Until health issues forced him to retire from playing in 2020, Theodor Kung performed as guest principal / sub-principal violin with orchestras across the UK and Europe. With regular engagements including Deputy Principal Violin II of the English National Ballet Philharmonic, Principal Violin II of United Strings of Europe, and Violin I of the Cardinal String Quartet, he also appeared as a frequent guest sub-principal with numerous British orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, Royal Northern Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Theodor has performed as a soloist with Ensemble Eroica, the Silk Street Ensemble and the Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra, and as a chamber musician with ensembles in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, the Czech Republic, Spain and Austria.
Between 2010 and 2020, Theodor shared the stage with (among others):
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Behzod Aburaimov - Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Kate Aldrich - Sergei Babayan - James Baillieu - Khatia Buniatishvili - Alexander Buzlov - Semyon Bychkov - Gautier Capuçon - Renaud Capuçon - Kyung Wha Chung - Alina Cojocaru - Joyce Didonato - Christophe von Dohnanyi - Charles Dutoit - Sir Mark Elder - Iván Fischer - Thierry Fischer - Martin Fröst - Edward Gardner - Valery Gergiev - Jane Glover - Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla - Ilya Gringolts - The Gypsy Kings - Tomáš Hanus - Manfred Honeck - Janine Jansen - Paavo Järvi - Guy Johnston - Leonidas Kavakos - Denis Matsuev - Zubin Mehta - Gianandrea Noseda - Antonio Pappano - Vasily Petrenko - Mikhaïl Pletnev - Menahem Pressler - Vadim Repin - Tamara Rojo - Carlo Rizzi - Esa-Pekka Salonen - Alexander Sitkovetsky - Nina Stemme - Nathalie Stutzmann - Bryn Terfel - Michael Tilson Thomas - Daniil Trifonov - Lars Vogt - Joshua Weilerstein - Pinchas Zukerman
Alongside ten years of private teaching and chamber music coaching, Theodor has played a key role in numerous outreach programmes across Europe and the Middle East. As leader of the Ansermet Ensemble he partnered with local communities to promote music education in remote areas of Switzerland, while as a long-standing member of United Strings of Europe he helped to deliver over fifty educational workshops for refugees, schoolchildren, and amateur musicians — notably with the United Lebanon Youth Project, Al Kamandjati, the Islington Council for Migrants and Refugees and Amnesty International's Human Rights Action Centre in London. From 2013 Theodor also enjoyed a close relationship with the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra, where he regularly appeared as Principal Guest Leader and Strings Coach, and collaborated as a mentor in a number of successful side-by-side projects with students from the International School and the Conservatoire de Musique & Danse in Geneva (Switzerland), the Lebanese National Conservatory, Notre Dame University, the International College and Brummana High School in Beirut (Lebanon), and the Conservatories of Valence and Romans (France).