“Music is such a central part of my life,” said Lisa Wong, violinist, pediatrician, and long-time Newton resident. “For me, balancing music and medicine is not a choice, but a necessity.” She began playing the piano at age three and violin at eight, and also learned guitar and ukulele. Lisa grew up in Honolulu, the middle child of five — two of whom were also violinists and one a cellist. Together, they formed a family string quartet. (Her youngest brother struck out on his own, choosing the trumpet.) Lisa’s father, Judge Dick Yin Wong — who became the first Asian American Federal District Court judge in the United States — loved music but grew up in a large, poor family and could not afford to take music lessons as a child. As a parent, he was determined to open up the wide world of music for Lisa and her siblings. The young string quartet played for children in hospitals, helping young patients escape their pain.
Her parents sent her to the progressive Punahou School – Barack Obama was a graduate – where academics, the arts, and community engagement were part of the curriculum.
Lisa said that by the time she arrived at Harvard, “I knew I wanted to be involved in music, health, and education.” Harvard’s student body included musicians, scientists, and people who would become both. Her future husband, Lynn Chang, who is a world-renowned violinist and teaches at the Boston Conservatory, was a founding member of the Harvard Trio along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Richard Kogan, M.D., a psychiatrist.
Music and medicine develop important complementary neural pathways, expanding concentration, basic skills, and compassion. Inspired by her musical experiences at the Shriners Hospital, Lisa determined that she would become a pediatrician. During her medical training at New York University Medical School, she was a member of the NYU Chamber Music Society and played concerts with other musical medical students. Returning to Massachusetts, Lisa married Lynn, completed her pediatric training at MGH, and joined Milton Pediatrics. Lisa and Lynn moved to Newton about thirty-five years ago and raised two musical children. The children started their musical journeys at the All Newton Music School and are now both violists. Their daughter Jenn is the White House liaison to the National Endowment for the Arts, and son Chris works in a tech music company in New York City.
Lisa divides her time among private pediatric practice, performing, and expanding musical opportunities for others. Along with Newton residents Drs. Susan Pories and David Jones, she is a co-director of the Arts and Humanities Initiative offering medical students a place to explore the arts, exhibit, and share their talents. They are joined by other Newton physicians including Dr. Joel Katz, an artist and internal medicine physician, and Dr. Andrea Schwartz, a writer and geriatrician. “We all believe that engaging in music, the arts, and humanities makes medical students better doctors,” Lisa says. Other medical schools — Cornell Weill in New York, Yale, Stanford, NYU — have arts and humanities programs as well, recognizing the nexus of music and medicine.
Thirty-eight years ago, Lisa joined the string section of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, whose musicians are all health care professionals. Guided by her belief that music and medicine heal people, she helped shape LSO’s unique “Healing Art of Music Program,” designed to help raise money for a wide range of Boston-area health-based non-profits. LSO musicians include Newton residents Dr. Shirie Leng (violinist and anesthesiologist), Dr. Richard Parker (violinist and internal medicine), Dr. Stephen Wright (bassoonist and gastroenterologist). Dr. Michael Barnett is the current LSO Board Chair and principal oboist. Recently, the LSO, too, made Newton its home, moving its administrative offices to the Allen House, on Webster Street in West Newton — Newton’s portal to all things musical.
In 2012, when she retired from 20 years as LSO’s president, Lisa wrote “Scales to Scalpels,” a book exploring the history of the LSO and the way music and medicine can serve the community. (“Scales to Scalpels” is available at the Newton Library.) This Saturday, December 3, Lisa and her LSO colleagues present a benefit concert, at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, for Shelter Music Boston, joined by its founder, violin soloist Adrian Anantawan. Shelter Music Boston brings music to those living in homeless shelters. For program and tickets, click here.
While there is an array of musical options for Newton children, many Boston children have no access to formal music lessons. Understanding the profound importance of a musical education, Lisa now chairs the education committee of Boston’s Conservatory Lab Charter School, where 450 students, “chosen by lottery, learn music daily. “Studies have shown,” she says, “that the more exposure to music children have before the age of seven, the better it is for brain development.”
During the pandemic, when concert performances were canceled, Lisa revisited her childhood interest in playing the cello. “If I was going to be locked down, I was going to be locked down with the cello,” she decided, and spent months mastering it. Music and medicine always offer new pathways. Newton is home to physicians from every imaginable medical specialty, and musicians playing every imaginable musical instrument, and often they are one-in-the same, as in the person of Lisa Wong, M.D.
