Blocking Out Noise: Metamorphosis and Identity in the Recent Chamber Music of Vivian Fung

This interview centred around Fung’s recent chamber works, the Fourth String Quartet (2019) and a new piece for Pierrot Ensemble and percussion, Corona Morphs (2020), and the connections between the geneses of these two pieces. The composer shares her highly personal experience of visiting Cambodia to learn more about her family history of escaping the genocide. What also struck Fung here was the local sounds of the cicadas, which remained with her on her return to America, and which formed the basis for a compositional language towards the writing of the Fourth String Quartet. The formal ideas from the quartet later also inspired the structure of Corona Morphs. The latter work was also conceived with the background of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Fung’s compositions explore intersections between the multi-cultural musics of her own heritage and the Western classical tradition, and incorporate various manifestations of the “human experience,” such as in her orchestral piece Earworms (2018), which is a musical commentary about our diverted attention spans, the constant barrage of music and other media, and our multitasking lives. She also discusses her 2013 article “Embracing My Banana-ness,” on Canadian childhood as the daughter of Chinese parents.