Vivian Fung
Juno Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has amassed a large and varied catalogue of orchestral, operatic, chamber and solo works on a variety of themes, often giving voice to under-represented people and places. The premiere of the Canadian’s Songs for the Next Generation takes place at New York City’s Kaufman Music Center on 30 May.
I was born and raised in Edmonton, Canada. I’m first-generation Canadian – my parents emigrated from Hong Kong after they got married. I grew up as any good immigrant family would, with eager parents who wanted their child to do well. I started piano lessons but didn’t want to practise, so I made stuff up.
My first piano teacher was also a composer. She recognised what I was doing and instead of telling me to stop and focus on the lesson, she taught me how to notate it all. Winters are harsh in Edmonton and there was nothing to do, so that became my outlet and it blossomed.
Songs for the Next Generation is a collaboration with tenor Nicholas Phan, the Jasper Quartet and pianist Myra Huang.
I had the initial seed of the project with the poet Claire Wahmanholm; she writes very well about the effects of climate change on her personal journey as a mother and as a person.
There’s one particular poem called O that really struck all of us, so that is the centre of the piece.
The Kaufman Music Center works with a school called The Special High School. Claire and I have been working with the students there; they will be crafting new poetry and I’ve selected poems to set into the song cycle.
I am planning an opera with librettist Royce Vavrek. It’s about my cousins, grandmother, uncles and aunts growing up in Vietnam and Cambodia, and eventually escaping the Cambodian genocide by migrating to Europe or Canada. We already have some scenes that we’ve collaborated on with Edmonton Opera, and we’re going to workshop them in 2025 with the Community Opera Company.
I write every day and I think of my creativity as a well that I draw from. I write and the process takes over, so I don’t really worry about writer’s block; I give myself the licence of knowing the first draft is going to be trash! Having a good foundation helps, plus a good space to work in and the fact I do it every day – it’s like a muscle and I’ve trained my muscle to work well. It took me a while to get to this point.
A good day of composing is about five hours. I will store ideas at random times, and there are some days when I just can’t get any work done. You have to be flexible; it’s not a 9-5 thing.
I often return to strings. I took up the cello as a teenager for a few years and I didn’t practise a lot. My cello teacher recognised that it was futile to enforce anything, so he played me wonderful recordings of Paul Tortelier and Pablo Casals. That got me to really love the string repertoire, and from that day forward it was a very comforting aspect of writing. I just recently wrote a fifth string quartet.
Winning the Juno Award for my First Violin Concerto brought me exposure and recognition in Canada and the US. It was written for Kristin Lee, who had taken the music theory class I’d been teaching at Juilliard. We lost touch when she graduated and then we ran into each other one day and she invited me to one of her recitals. I was blown away by her playing and we started talking about me writing a piece for her.
It’s really special to have collaborative efforts where it’s not just about the notes on the page, but something bigger. I seek that as much as possible and it’s great when it happens. Kristin and I are planning a piece for violin and percussion orchestra, and I’m working more with Royce Vavrek. There are a lot of stories to tell.