Guest Artists

• Feature Composers

  This year's guest composers are some of the leading figures in contemporary music. Not only has each obtained an international reputation as a composer and pedagogue but, also, all four serve on the directorial boards of annual festivals for contemporary music.

• Chinary Ung

  Chinary Ung is often associated with that group of Asian-born composers whose music incorporates aspects of eastern musical characteristics into a western classical music setting. Aside from specific cultural and generational distinctions, the principal difference between Ung's work and theirs is that for many years he was prevented from engaging directly with the source of his cultural heritage as his native country was being torn apart by the scourge of the Khmer Rouge. Indeed, as the people and culture of Cambodia were being systematically destroyed, Ung took it upon himself to rescue some facet of the traditional music he had known as a child, reconstituting Cambodian musical traditions through his performances on the roneat-ek – the Cambodian xylophone. This project reflects the qualities of responsibility and of hopefulness that are so strongly a part of Ung's personality.
  Ung's Cambodian roots are woven into the fabric of his identity, but the musical aspects are, as result of his peculiar circumstance, keenly related to memory. For many years – through the late 1980's – Ung's music had a plaintive character in its modally-inflected, melodic behaviors, as if he were reaching back to another time uncorrupted by political tumult. Ung's work of this period established him as a major figure in American music, winning citations from virtually every major musical arts institution in his adopted country. For Inner Voices he was given the Grawemeyer Award, the first American recipient of this prestigious prize in music composition. That work, along with the Spirals series indicates a self-referential artistic project where one seeks spiritual strength and inspiration through meditation and quiet contemplation, traits of Buddhist spiritual exercises. The Spirals series in particular shows an affinity for the connection between pieces.
  The creative impetus draws from many sources – such as dreams -- and there is a distinct pictorial and spiritual basis to Ung's music. Aura, a large work for two sopranos and chamber ensemble written in 2005, refers to the multicolored aura surrounding the Buddha's head. The work's extensive amplification draws the listener into the performance space, as if invited into the healing light of the Buddha. Rain of Tears, a concerto for chamber orchestra composed in 2006, commemorates the victims of natural disasters in Bandeh Aceh and New Orleans. Its many variants on rising and falling figures present a staggering interpretation of wave imagery. In this work, Ung invokes the Buddhist concept of Shunyata, which he describes as spiritual openness, in order to inspire four distinct statements of compassion.
  Ung's extensive orchestral catalog has been commissioned and performed by major orchestras throughout the United States and abroad, including those in Philadelphia, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Tokyo, Sydney, Basel, as well as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the American Composers Orchestra. Boston Modern Orchestra Project released a recording of Ung's orchestral music in 2015. Ung's work has been commissioned by the Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ford, Koussevitsky, Joyce, and Barlow Foundations. In 2014 he was given the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award by the New York-based Asian Cultural Council.
  Ung recently participated in the Pacific Rim Festival at University of California Santa Cruz, where his work entitled Singing Inside Aura III, for Amplified Singing Violist and Korean Traditional Orchestra, received performances at both UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. This piece, commissioned by the Gugak Center, is projected to receive another performance in Seoul, Korea, December 2017. Additionally, the National Endowment of the Arts has extended support for the forthcoming Therigatha Inside Aura, dedicated to the peacemakers of tomorrow. This spring, Chapman University will present a Chinary Ung Portrait Concert at the new Musco Center for the Arts, and he begins his residence at Scripps College in March 2018, where Therigatha Inside Aura will be performed and recorded.

  
• Deqing Wen

  Deqing Wen, a Chinese Swiss composer, studied composition at Fujian Normal University (China) with Guo Zu-Rong, the China Conservatory of Music with Shi Wan-Chun and Luo Zhong-Rong, le Conservatoire de Musique de Genève (Switzerland) with Jean Balissat, le Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon (France) with Gilbert Amy, and Columbia University (US) as a visiting scholar under Tristan Murail. He has been listed in Who's Who in the World of Music by Cambridge Biographic Center. He is currently a professor of Composition at Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Artistic Director of Shanghi New Music Festival. He is also a member of the Societé Suisse pour les Droits des Auteurs d'Oeuvres and vice-chairman of the China-ASEAN musicians union.
  Deqing Wen is deeply influenced by Chinese traditional arts and philosophy, which have provided him so many inspirations for his musical works yet without leaving any track. His works are considered brilliant in techniques, full of emotions, exquisite with subtle tensions, and bold in blazing new trails but readily understood, drawing on different musical genres. They are so unique and original that they have won him world acclaim. Zhou Haihong, the professor of the Central Conservatory of music, once wrote, wen's music "strikes a balance between complexity and clarity, between mystery and rationality, between shock and subtlety, between fantasy and rigor and between exactness and profundity". Derek Weber of Salzburger Nachrichten wrote after the concert of Vienna Modern 1999 that "Wen's music is so fresh like the morning dew and exciting as a detective story and enjoyable as an evening with the best friends."
  His works have been performed at festivals such as the Festival Archipel (Switzerland), Festival AMADEUS(Switzerland), DAVOS FESTIVAL - young artists in concert(Switzerland), Vienna Modern, ISCM World Contemporary Music festival, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music(Germany), the Wittener Tage fur neue Kammermusik(Germany), Savonlinna Opera Festival (Finland), Asian Composers League Festival(Japan, Australia), Hong Kong Arts Festival, Taibei International new Music Festival, Beijing International Music Festival, Beijing Modern Festival of Music, Thailand International Composers Festival, Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and Shanghai New Music Week, etc.
  Deqing Wen has been honored with concerts portrait, as well as master classes, dedicated to his compositions in China, Switzerland, France, Denmark, the United States, Germany and Israel. His works are published by Swiss Musical Edition, Bärenreiter-Verlag (Germany), Shanghai Conservatory of Music Press, Beijing People's Music Publishing House. His albums are released by Stradivarius Records (Italy), Grammont Portrait Contemporary SWISS, Naxos Records, Telos Music Records, Shanghai Music Publishing House.

  
• Melinda Wagner

  Celebrated as an "...eloquent, poetic voice in contemporary music..." [American Record Guide], Melinda Wagner's esteemed catalog of works embodies music of exceptional beauty, power, and intelligence. Wagner received widespread attention when her colorful Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. Since then, major works have included Concerto for Trombone, for Joseph Alessi and the New York Philharmonic, a piano concerto, Extremity of Sky, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony for Emanuel Ax, and Little Moonhead, composed for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, as part of its popular "New Brandenburgs" project.
  Noted for its "...prismatic colors and...lithe sense of mystery..." [Washington Post], Extremity of Sky has been performed by Emanuel Ax with the National Symphony (on tour), the Toronto and Kansas City Symphonies, and the Staatskapelle Berlin.Championed early on by Daniel Barenboim, Wagner has received three commissions from the Chicago Symphony; the most recent of these, Proceed, Moon, is to be premiered by the CSO under the baton of Susanna Mälkki in 2017. Other recent performances have come from the American Composers Orchestra, the United States Marine Band, BMOP, the American Brass Quintet, the Empyrean Ensemble, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.
  Among honors Wagner has received is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and ASCAP. Wagner was given an honorary doctorate from Hamilton College, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. Melinda Wagner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2017.
  A passionate and inspiring teacher, Melinda Wagner has given master classes at many fine institutions across the United States, including Harvard, Yale, Eastman, Juilliard, and UC Davis. She has held faculty positions at Brandeis University and Smith College, and has served as a mentor at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Wellesley Composers Conference, and Yellow Barn. Ms. Wagner currently serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music.

  
• Dr. Narong Prangcharoen

  Thai Composer Narong Prangcharoen's success as a composer was confirmed by his receiving the prestigious 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship and the Barlow Prize. Other awards include the Music Alive, the 20th Annual American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Commission, the American Composers Orchestra Audience Choice Award, the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, the Alexander Zemlinsky International Composition Competition Prize, the 18th ACL Yoshiro IRINO Memorial Composition Award, the Pacific Symphony's American Composers Competition Prize, and the Annapolis Charter 300 International Composers Competition Prize. In his native country, Mr. Prangcharoen was recipient of the Silapathorn Award, naming him a "Thailand Contemporary National Artist". Mr. Prangcharoen's music has been performed in Asia, America, Australia, and Europe by many renowned ensembles and orchestra under many well-known conductors, such Carl St. Clair, Steven D. Davis, Carlos Kalmer, Jose-Luis Novo, Mikhail Pletnev, and Osmo Vänskä. Mr. Prangcharoen received his DMA from University of Missouri-Kansas City, where his primary teacher was Chen Yi. Narong is now a Dean of a College of Music, Mahidol University, Thailand. He is also a composer-in-Residence of the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Thailand, an Artistic Director of Thailand International Composition Festival, an Artistic Committee of Beijing Modern Music Festival, an Artistic Advisor of Asia/America New Music Institute, and a Vice President of China-ASEAN Musicians Union. His works are published exclusively by Theodore Presser Company.