Jesse Wang Chung Yao was born to Chinese immigrants in the Summer of ‘69.  As soon as he was able to sit upright, his parents began teaching him the piano.  Quickly outgrowing his parents’ teaching abilities, Jesse was placed under the tutelage of Master Dong from The School of Fine Arts.  The poor Chinese parents spent all of their hard earned money on piano lessons, playing under candlelight to save money on electricity bills. 

At the age of 5, Jesse performed his first concert at Carnegie Hall.  By the age of 7, the young pianist had already written his first piano concerto, “Piano Concerto in D Flat Minor” (The saddest of all keys). Jesse was receiving critical acclaim, but was living under the strict pressure of Master Dong.

At The School of Fine Arts, no music was allowed other than classical and no radios existed on campus.  Growing weary of Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin, Jesse longed to expand his musical horizons.  It was in the spring of 1983 that his life changed forever.

One day during a field trip into the city, Jesse snuck away from the group and entered a music store. The cashier had long curly blonde hair and sported red leather pants.  Jesse had never seen a man that looked as such!!  In awe, he asked the man to suggest an album for him to buy.

Excited, Jesse couldn’t wait to get back to his room to play his new album.  Removing Brahms from his record player, Jesse replaced it with his new album, Def Leppard “Pyromania.”  Jesse was awestruck!

For the next few months, Jesse played the album repeatedly, taking the song "Rock Rock Til’ You Drop" quite literally.  While screaming into his pencil like Joe Elliott into a mic and wondering what it all could mean, Master Dong suddenly entered the room.  Master Dong had grown quite suspicious of the young child, noticing that Jesse had grown his hair quite long and became quite disinterested in practicing his scales.  After a long lecture by Master Dong, as if possessed by the devil Jesse simply replied, “I Wanna Rock!!”  Jesse was quickly thrown out of The School of Fine Arts.

Jesse spent the next impressionable years of his life listening to 80’s hair bands.  While other teenagers were tossing aside their ABBA and Bee Gees records, Jesse was discarding the likes of Beethoven and Mozart.  While Jesse is now clean cut and works as an electrical engineer, you can still hear Bon Jovi or Quiet Riot coming from his CD player.