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Keeping up with Festival Alumni
A Conversation with Composers Derek Bermel, Viet Cuong, and Vivian Fung
Please join us for a free Zoom conversation between Artistic Directors David Ying and Phillip Ying and three contemporary chamber music composers recognized for their inventiveness and acclaimed new works. These Festival composition program alumni will share memories, provide insight into their creative process, and invite audience questions.
The recording of the conversation will be available on our YouTube channel.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Festival composer-in-residence Derek Bermel ’93 is Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, Director of Copland House’s emerging composers institute Cultivate, as well as the curator of the Festival’s own Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music. Bermel is recognized as a dynamic and unconventional curator of concert series that spotlight the composer as performer. Bermel’s international studies of ethnomusicology and orchestration coupled with ongoing engagement with other musical cultures are key components to his work. Read More
Since studying at the Festival, Viet Cuong ’11 has been commissioned and performed on six continents. Described as “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, his works for wind ensemble have amassed hundreds of performances worldwide. Both a composer and multi-instrumentalist, he recently began his tenure as the California Symphony’s 2020-2023 Young American Composer-in-Residence, where he and the symphony will develop three new orchestral works together over three years. Read More
Rightfully noted as “one of today’s most eclectic composers” by NPR, Vivian Fung ’94 has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works. In 2014, the Festival commissioned Ms. Fung to compose a piece to commemorate the Festival’s 50th anniversary. The resulting “Voices In My Head” is a percussive and theatrical soundscape. Enjoy its world premiere at Studzinski Hall (featuring Luke Rinderknecht, Tony Guarino, and Christina Mancoer). Read More