Vivian Fung

JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers.”

Highlights of upcoming performances include the world premiere of Vivian Fung’s fifth String Quartet by Canada’s Lafayette String Quartet and a new piece for Houston’s ROCO; international performances of her critically-acclaimed elegy for the pandemic, Prayer; and the European premieres of A Child's Dream of Toys at Germany’s Theater Erfurt, Baroque Melting with Switzerland’s Berner Symphonieorchester led by Gemma New, and Prayer by the Argovia Philharmonic. Mary Elizabeth Bowden tours her Trumpet Concerto to Philharmonia Northwest, Waynesboro Symphony, San José Chamber Orchestra. Fung is the 2023 Composer-in-Residence at Alba Music Festival Composition Program in Italy.

Fung is currently at work on a new project about identity with soprano Andrea Nunez and Royce Vavrek, percussion works for Network for New Music and Ensemble for These Times, a piano work for the “Ligeti Etudes meets 18 Composers” commissioning project, and a commission by Cape Cod Chamber Music Society. A portrait album featuring the Jasper Quartet in Vivian Fung’s first four string quartets will be released on Sono Luminus in 2023, and Elizabeth Bowden has recorded her Trumpet Concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras for future release on Çedille Records.

Recent season highlights include the world premiere of new flute concerto, Storm Within, by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and principal flutist Christie Reside; the digital world premiere of two operatic scenes based on Fung’s oral family history in Cambodia with librettist Royce Vavrek, part of Edmonton Opera’s The Wild Rose Opera Project; and the world premiere of String Quartet No. 4 “Insects and Machines” by the American String Quartet. In July 2020, the CBC’s Virtual Orchestra gave the world premiere of Fung’s Prayer, a unique work recorded in isolation for an online performance led by conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fung has a deep interest in exploring cultures through travel and research. She traveled to Southwest China in 2012 to study minority music and cultures, continuing research that previously inspired Yunnan Folk Songs (2011). As a composer whose trips often inspire her music, Fung has also explored diverse cultures in North Vietnam, Spain, and Indonesia. She toured Bali three times, and competed in the Bali Arts Festival as an ensemble member and composer in Gamelan Dharma Swara. With a grant from the Canada Council, she and Royce Vavrek will travel to Cambodia in 2023 to continue research for a new opera based on her family’s experience surviving the Cambodian genocide.

In 2012, Naxos Canadian Classics released a recording of Fung’s Violin Concerto [No.1], commissioned by the Metropolis Ensemble, which earned Fung the 2013 JUNO Award for “Classical Composition of the Year.” Several of Fung’s other works have also been released commercially on the Telarc, Çedille, Innova, and Signpost labels.

Fung has mentored young composers in programs at the London Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Forum, San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. She is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and served on the board of the American Composers Forum, and has been a guest educator at many organizations including the Mostly Modern Summer Music Festival, the New York State School Music Association, and coming up at the Longy School and Luna Composition Lab.

Born in Canada, Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School, where her mentors included David Diamond and Robert Beaser. She currently lives in California with her husband Charles Boudreau, their son Julian, and their shiba inu Mulan.

Biography taken from composer’s website.