The Fifty-Eighth Annual

Symposium of Contemporary Music

Featured Guest Composer
Chinary Ung
University of California, San Diego

Guest Lecturer
Adam Greene

Guest Performers
Susan Ung, viola
Stacey Fraser, soprano
Jocelyn Chang, piano

Tuesday, September 18, 8 PM, Westbrook Auditorium

• Concert: Music of Chinary Ung
• Featuring Faculty and Guest Performers

Wednesday, September 19, 11 AM, Presser Hall room 258

• Lecture: Adam Greene, composer/authority on Chinary Ung's music

Both events are free and open to the public

Chinary Ung

Chinary Ung was born in Cambodia in 1942 and came to the United States in 1964 to further his studies in music. He received training in New York City, where he was a clarinet student of Charles Russo at the Manhattan School of Music. A few years later he became a composition student of Chou Wen-chung, at first, privately, and later as a doctoral student at Columbia University. In the 1980's, he was the President of the Khmer Studies Institute. He obtained a Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in music composition with distinction, from Columbia University in 1974. He is a master Roneat Ek performer, the native Cambodian xylophone of the Pinpeat tradition, which often accompanies the court dance, dance drama, and ritual ceremonies. He is presently Professor of Composition at the University of California at San Diego.

Ung has received many honors including those from the Koussevitzky, John F. Kennedy/Friedheim Award, National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and, he was the first American to receive the coveted international Grawemeyer Award (1989), sometimes called the Nobel Prize for composers. He has received three Cultural Preservation Awards from numerous Cambodian-American communities and is currently an advisor of the Killing Fields Memorial and Cambodian-American Heritage Museum in Chicago. An international Cambodian Studies Conference, IMAGINE CAMBODIA, is honoring Ung with an evening program of his music, in September, 2012, at Northern Illinois University. The New Juilliard Ensemble will perform a large ensemble version of his chamber orchestra work, Rain of Tears later in September. He is currently a music advisor of the Season of Cambodia, a festival of Cambodian Arts and Culture, New York City, April/May, 2013. Ung will be a guest of honor for Thailand Asian Composers League, Thailand, in July, 2013, at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Recently, Ung and his wife, Susan received a joint fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council to establish a Composers Institute in Cambodia, a project which will begin next year.

Recent commissions include AURA for Southwest Chamber Music, ORACLE from the Da Capo Chamber Players, RAIN OF TEARS for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra funded by a grant from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago, Spiral XIV: "Nimitta", for a Minneapolis based ensemble, Zeitgeist. He has written several works in collaboration with his wife, Susan Ung who specializes in viola with vocalization. Spiral IX is for baritone, viola and percussion, Spiral XI, for viola/voice solo and Spiral XII is for a large ensemble with Cambodian dancers, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and was premiered at Disney Hall in November, 2008. His work AKASA, for viola, cello, pipa, percussion and piano was premiered at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and La Jolla Summerfest in 2011. His viola concerto will be premiered this February by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. During his 70th birthday year, 2012/13, numerous ensembles/institutions will offer celebratory concerts in cities on Southeast Asia and US, including a performance by the New York New Music Ensemble of his epic work, AURA, for two sopranos and ten instrumentalists, which Ung will conduct at Le Poisson Rouge, in NYC this April. This October Ung will be a distinguished guest composer at the Chengdu Contemporary Music Festival at Sichuan Conservatory of Music, China, where his works will be performed by artists from various countries.

Bridge Records has released three volumes of his works. Volume 1 is a new recording of older, revised works and in 2009 was cited by The New York Times to be in the top 10 classical music recordings of that year. Volume 2 was recorded by Da Capo Chamber Players, cited to be the top 5 CD's by National Public Radio. the recently released Volume 3 includes Spiral IX and Spiral XI, two ambitious works with extensive vocalization by instrumentalists. His works are also recorded on New World Records, CRI, Oodiscs, Norton Recordings, Koch International, Mark Custom, Argo, Cambria, ALM Records, Naxos (Canada), Atoll (New Zealand), and Klein Records (Germany). The music of Chinary Ung is published exclusively by C. F. Peters Corporation.

Susan Ung, viola

Susan Ung has performed in major venues in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as at the Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival and La Jolla Summerfest. Her international experience includes residencies in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia. Her approach to the viola is informed by an interest in traditional music from several Asian cultures, and study of the ehr-hu and Javanese gamelan which she studied at Northern Illinois University under Dr. Han Kuo-Han. She received undergraduate and graduate degrees in viola performance at Northern Illinois University and at Stony Brook University in New York, where her major teachers were Nobuko Imai and John Graham. The fruit of these studies and a commitment to the music of her time have blossomed in a long collaboration with her husband Chinary Ung. Their work together has led her to develop a repertoire of unorthodox skills, particularly the use of complex vocalizations while simultaneously playing the viola. Susan Ung appears on recordings on the Bridge, CRI, Cambria, and Koch labels.

Stacey Fraser, soprano

Canadian soprano Stacey Fraser's eclectic musical interests have led her to sing on international operatic, concert and theatre stages across the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist for the San Diego Opera, the Tony Award winning La Jolla Playhouse, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan, the Musicasa Concert Hall in Tokyo, Japan, the Thailand Composition Festival, the Americké Jaro Festival in Prednasek, Czech Republic, Red Square Gallery in Hong Kong, Vancouver Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, La Jolla Symphony, San Bernardino Symphony, Banff Centre, Tanglewood Music Center, Asia Society NYC, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and the world renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York City.

As an avid performer of contemporary music, her debut performance of Sequenza III was described as an "amusing, virtuosic rendering of Mr. Berio's stream of unconventional vocalizations" by Allan Kozinn of the The New York Times. Her 2009 performance of Seven Songs from the Unknown Kurt Weill was described by the San Diego Union Tribune as "marvelously edgy" and "showed delicious physicality and intelligent restraint".
Stacey is dedicated to the performance of vocal works by modern Asian-American composers and is a long-time collaborator of Japanese composer Koji Nakano, grand prize winner of the 2008 S & R Foundation award. Ms. Fraser has recorded Nakano's Ancient Songs (2007) for solo voice as well as his chamber piece Time Song II, Howling through time for soprano, percussion and flute (2006). Fraser most recently gave the world premiere of Nakano's new work for soprano entitled Arigatoo from the opera Spiritual Forest at the Kennedy Center. She performed the Asian premiere of Arigatoo ten days later on March 1, 2011 to a sold out house at the Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan. Ms. Fraser's articles on Nakano's vocal music have been published by Cambridge Scholar Press (2009) and the College Music Symposium (2011).
Operatic roles include Despina in Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte, Pamina in The Magic Flute for the San Diego Opera Ensemble, Erste Knaben in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, First Handmaiden in Puccini's Turandot for the San Diego Opera, Miss Silverpeal in The Impresario for South Dakota Symphony and the role of the Opera Singer in Paris Commune for La Jolla Playhouse. During her tenure at San Diego Opera as an Ensemble member, she understudied the roles of Marzelline in Fidelio, Suzanne in Tobias Picker's Thérèse Raquin and Léila in Bizet's Les Pêcheurs des Perles. Oratorio highlights include the soprano soloist in Handel's Messiah with Vancouver Symphony, Eva in Haydn's Die Schöpfung with La Jolla Symphony, and soprano soloist in both Mendelssohn's Lobgesange and the Stravinsky Mass with the San Bernardino Symphony.
Stacey can be heard in the role of Lisinga on the premiere recording of Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Garcia's opera Le Cinesi for Harmonicorde Recordings and on the University of California San Diego Sound Check series singing Webern's Opus 18. She holds a Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance from University of California, San Diego, Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Toronto. She is currently an Associate Professor of Music at California State University, San Bernardino where she is the Director of Opera Theatre. She is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists and Actors Equity Association.

Jocelyn Chang, piano

Pianist Jocelyn Hua-Chen Chang, an award winning pianist, is consistently praised as "a pianist of
virtuoso caliber" whose "artistry is very unique and communicative with wonderful attention to detail,
texture, color, and style." Her performances are "filled with energy, flair and conviction"; her "performance ability is first-rate while still playing with charm and sensibility."

Chang holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance with Distinction from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she majored in Piano Performance with concentrations in Keyboard Collaborative Arts, Double Bass Performance, and Music Education. She received her Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the National Taiwan Normal University, where she majored in Piano Performance with a minor in Double Bass Performance. Chang was enrolled in Taiwan's prestigious government program for musically gifted children in the city of Taipei beginning in elementary school and through high school. Additionally, she has also studied at the Belarusian State  Academy of Music in Minsk, Belarus.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Jocelyn enjoys a versatile musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, adjudicator, and educator. She made her piano concerto debut with the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra in 1998 and later with the Taipei Century Symphony Orchestra in the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She has garnered numerous accolades and top prizes from the Taiwan National Piano Competition, the SinoPac Young Artist Piano Competition, the Taipei Piano Competition, the National Taiwan Normal University Piano Concerto Competition, the Taiwan Pace Young Musician Awards, the Taiwan National Chamber Music Competition, the Taipei Double Bass Competition, and the Taiwan National Double Bass Competition.

While completing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree, Dr. Chang served on the faculty at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. For her accomplishments and effectiveness as an educator, USC has distinguished her as a Model Teacher. Dr. Chang has also taught master classes through the Riverside branch and the San Bernardino branch of the Music Teachers Association of California(MTAC). She has also been frequently invited to serve as judge for the piano competitions which include the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artist Piano Competition, United States Open Music Competition, Southwestern Youth Music Festival Competition, Liana Cohen Music Festival
Competition, La Sierra University Concerto Competition, and Diamond Bar Performing Arts Challenge Competition.

She has worked extensively with the internationally renowned concert pianist Daniel Pollack, who is a pupil of the legendary Rosina Lhévinne and Josef Lhévinne. Through her academic journey, she has also been under the tutelage of distinguished artists and educators Stewart Gordon, Boris Slutsky, Kevin Fitz-Gerald, Zoia Kocharskaya, Dennis Thurmond, Dennis Trembly, En Wang and Ren-Jen Wang.

Jocelyn Hua-Chen Chang is on the faculty and serves as Director of Keyboard Studies of the Music Department at California State University, San Bernardino. Dr. Chang is Founder and Faculty Advisor of Piano Society at California State University, San Bernardino. She is also on the faculty at Pasadena City College. In addition to her performing and teaching schedule, Dr. Chang teaches and directs a highly selective piano studio in Pasadena, California. She makes her home in Pasadena, California and Taipei, Taiwan.

To learn more about Jocelyn Hua-Chen Chang, please visit her websites: www.JocelynChang.com

Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a composer of instrumental works intended to re-explore the nature of engagement between composer and performer. His compositions have been commissioned and presented by performers and institutions committed to the promotion of new and innovative musical experiences, including SONOR, Ensemble Resonanz, the Formalist Quartet, János Négyesy, and Speculum Musicae. His collaborations with adventurous and generous soloists have been vital in forging an approach towards the musical score that places extreme physical and technical demands in a meaningful dramatic and expressive context.

While several of his compositions are extended from concepts where no particular text exists, many works have emerged from an encounter with writings, such as those by Calvino, Beckett, Joyce, and Lewis Carroll. His orchestral work In Winter takes as a point of departure a haiku from Basho. Recently he has been engrossed in Classical texts, which have formed the basis for several ongoing projects. An occasional poet, his own words have found their way into musical projects as well, often as a means of offering an alternate, poetic commentary to musical figures that simultaneously aids and complicates the performer's interpretation.

Adam Greene's music has been performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia. He has participated in several festivals and residency programs that have featured his works, such as UCROSS, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the International Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Darmstadt), the Composers Conference at Wellesley, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance (at the New England Conservatory of Music), and the Long Beach Summer Arts program. As a student of Franco Donatoni in the mid-1990's he was enrolled in courses in composition and contemporary music at the Civica Scuola, Milan. His awards include a commission grant from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard, as well as prizes from ASCAP, American Composers Forum, and NACUSA. Recordings of his music can be found on Aucourant Records.

About the Symposium

The Annual Symposium of Contemporary Music, established in 1952, brings prominent guest composers or performers to campus each year for a two-to-three-day residency. IWU faculty and students participate in the performance of works by guest composers and in discussions on aesthetic or analytical issues.  Guests also give master classes and presentations to composition and performance students.

Recent guests of the Symposium include; Grammy recipients Libby Larsen and John Corigliano; two of Europe's most widely celebrated composers, Arvo Pärt and Louis Andriessen; and the acclaimed ensembles Present Music and the New York New Music Ensemble.  The Symposium forms part of IWU's New Music Series, which also includes recitals of contemporary music by guest composers and performers, faculty performances, the New Music Cafe concert series, ensemble concerts featuring new music, and recitals of student compositions.

Previous Guest Composers, Performers, Scholars