Composer Vivian Fung created this Spotify playlist, including Violin Concerto from our studio album, Dreamscapes, performed by violinist Kristin Lee.
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Dreamscapes
Schooled in the classics, Vivian Fung writes music that speaks to the experiences of 21st-century audiences. "I feel like this is my role, she says, whether composing for orchestra, or other ensembles. "It has to be of our time. "
It may seem surprising to hear that Vivian Fung, born and raised in Edmonton, has built an international reputation as a classical music composer that has led her to a commissioned orchestral work for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as a way of introducing its 2015 season in September. But there it is. Fung knows no bounds, nor does her compositional groove.
Dreamscapes is magnificent with virtuosic performances… a spectacular sounding disc… by one of today’s most eclectic composers.
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) announced today that Edmonton-born composer Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto is the winner of the 2013 Juno Award for “Classical Composition of the Year.”
The two concertos were recorded at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall by Charlie Post and Tim Martyn with a “you-are-there” feeling.
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) announced this morning that Edmonton-born composer Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto is nominated for the 2013 Juno Award in the category of “Classical Composition of the Year.”
The concerto was released on the new studio album Dreamscapes featuring soloist Kristin Lee and “played with precision and heart by the Metropolis Ensemble” (NPR). The recording is receiving critical acclaim for its “welcome lyricism and grace” (SF Chronicle) and “intimate, often pensive, but frequently playful sound world” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
“Complete shock and elation!” exclaimed Ms. Fung on hearing the news of the Juno nod. “What an honor to be nominated next to such esteemed and admired Canadian composers. However, the award is symbolic for the entire team of people who worked so hard to make this CD happen.”
Kristin Lee echoed this enthusiasm: “I am absolutely thrilled to hear this incredible news! I feel truly honored to have been a part of this experience.”
Dreamscapes is the first release on the brand new Naxos Canadian Classics label that will feature 6-8 composers from across Canada annually. “It is a terrific roster of composers with whom to be nominated,” said Raymond Bisha of Naxos. “Clearly this nomination is the result of everyone’s hard work and inspiration and congratulations all around are deserved.”
All three of the works on the new recording have drawn their inspiration from Ms. Fung’s travels to Bali. Both the Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto were commissioned by Metropolis Ensemble and recorded at Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in 2011.
“I couldn’t be happier — we’ve covering all bases now between the Grammys and Juno Awards!” remarked Andrew Cyr, artistic director and conductor of Metropolis Ensemble. “This is a truly special nomination which honors Vivian’s vision and the internationally recognized award brings to the spotlight the artistry of our players, soloist Kristin Lee, and our engineering team led by Tim Martyn, who all worked so hard to match Vivian’s inspiration. I also wish to thank Paul and Elizabeth De Rosa for providing the critical support to for Metropolis Ensemble to commission and record this work.”
The 2013 Juno Awards will be presented on April 21 on CTV with host Michael Buble. Dreamscapes is now available on iTunes and Amazon. Show your support for Vivian Fung and Metropolis Ensemble’s album and request Violin Concerto to be played on your local radio station today!
The opening Violin Concerto is a good introduction to Fung, offering an immediate vista of her understated but brilliant orchestration and her technically demanding but musically riveting writing for the violin.
This, easily, one of the most unusual piano concertos you will ever hear but, I think, the strongest work in this collection and completely fascinating. The fact that she is, clearly, a very creative and skilled composer is all I need to recommend this without hesitation.
Vivian Fung’s Dreamscapes is a cutting-edge album in the best sense, an invigorating indication of where we are in classical music.
Exciting, skilfully put together music with many exoticisms.
“What sets Fung apart is her ability to take over the subconscious of the listener, to build a world so captivating that even the strangest of transitions happen seamlessly. “
“The year-old Violin Concerto that leads off the disc boasts a certain winsome charm, especially in the fluid performance of soloist Kristin Lee.”
At every point in the disc, Fung has a strong sense of thematic control and structural overview that suggests more great things to come.
Joshua Kosman from the San Francisco Chronicle hails the new Metropolis Ensemble album, Dreamscapes, and its “welcome lyricism and grace.” Here’s an excerpt from his review:
“The year-old Violin Concerto that leads off the disc boasts a certain winsome charm, especially in the fluid performance of soloist Kristin Lee….the final Piano Concerto, in a powerhouse rendition featuring soloist Conor Hanick. Here at last is music of dramatic urgency and depth, in which Fung draws on ideas from gamelan while also adding plenty of her own original material – clangorous, dissonant harmonies, off-kilter rhythms and a sense of wild unpredictability.”
Here at last is music of dramatic urgency and depth, in which Fung draws on ideas from gamelan while also adding plenty of her own original material - clangorous, dissonant harmonies, off-kilter rhythms and a sense of wild unpredictability.
Dreamscapes, the new album from Metropolis Ensemble featuring the works of Vivian Fung, is already turning heads and getting airplay ahead of the formal Naxos release on September 25 (and the Metropolis CD launch event on October 1). Both local classical stations in New York City have included the new album in broadcasts this week. John Schaefer featured the recordings with its “clear inspiration or influence from Indonesian gamelan music” on WNYC’s New Sounds. And Olivia Giovetti introduced the album on WQXR’s The New Canon with the following review:
Two concertos dominate Dreamscapes, Vivian Fung’s new album on Naxos’s Canadian Classics series, and both demonstrate Fung’s prepossessing predilection for cross-cultural conversations. Her own Violin Concerto was written with a symbiosis similar to that of Salonen and Josefowicz’s, responding to Fung’s time spent in Bali with violinist Kristin Lee (the violin often resembles the Balinese gamelan). The Metropolis Ensemble, under Andrew Cyr, gave Fung’s Violin Concerto its world premiere last year and returns here for the recording, which also features Fung’s Piano Concerto, “Dreamscapes.” The study of contrasts is apt for an instrument that can juggle two musical lines at once, and here that honor falls to Q2 Music’s own Conor Hanick.
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All three of the works presented here are based on gamelan motifs and melodies giving the disc a wonderful continuity.
Ilona Oltuski talked with composer Vivian Fung about her work in gamelan and new music for Sequenza 21, including her new Violin Concerto.
“I invited Andrew Cyr to join me and we both were blown away by her performance. Andrew invited Kristin to join the Metropolis Ensemble, where she also became the concertmaster for the performance of my Piano Concerto in 2009. She loved it, enough so, that she sent me an email after a rehearsal and asked me to write a violin concerto for her. The relationship I have fostered with Kristin resulted also in her accompanying me to Bali, this past summer of 2010, while I was touring with Gamelan Dharmaswana, in residence here at the New York Indonesian Consulate. The trip made our musical friendship grow deeper. The cadenza was a collaborative effort, it will be a tour de force,” says Fung”, as she invites me to preview the performance of mentioned cadenza, at its inaugural benefit performance at Riverpark, with the Metropolis Ensemble on March 8th, 2011. The world premiere of the violin concerto in its entirety is planned for sometime in the fall of 2011.
There’s a long tradition of composers finding inspiration in Balinese music, from Poulenc and Britten to Evan Ziporyn and Ingram Marshall.