Vivian Fung - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 39: Vivian Fung (part 1)

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In this week’s episode, we talk to Vivian Fung about how her unique ethnic background influenced her journey as a composer. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Vivian Fung, check her out here: vivianfung.ca. Parts of this episode originally premiered on March 2022, found on Youtube, click here.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Roziht Edwards and Merve Tokar

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness: 0:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, artistic executive director of Ensemble For These Times. In this week's episode, we're joined by Vivian Fung, who we spoke to in March 2022 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us. You live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and were born in Canada, your family has roots to Cambodia on one side and China on the other. And you've traveled widely to Asia to research and explore your identity. What has that meant for you music?

Vivian Fung: 0:50

Wow, that's, that's a lot to pack in, um, you know, I think of my music as sort of, it's become an extension of myself, more than sort of any sort of cultural, it doesn't really have a cultural attachment to it. So I think of music as sort of a exploration to understand myself and my family. And so, a lot of times, my music is about identity, but it's not really tied to a specific cultural, you know, location or have you, it is about my personal experience, it's my about my personal feelings. And because of that specific specificity, I think it also becomes universal, because it's so specific to me. And I hope that my journey is also resonates with other people. And so it's, for me, it's about human sentiment and the human condition more than it is about tracing the cultural backgrounds or the or being, being faithful to that, I guess, um, I don't know if that makes sense. I mean, and as a byproduct, of course, I would have certain influences, Golan has been a huge influence, because of the fact that I joined a Balinese gamelan for many years. And I have an affinity to Southeast Asia. Recently, I've begun an oral history of my family's journey, you know, trying to escape the or they did escape the camera rooms back in 1975. That year I was born. And I'm, I composed some awkward scenes around that, as well as a percussion piece. And I'm hoping to enlarge that into a bigger full length opera. So all these things sort of shape, who I am, and also my music. And I kind of tend to borrow from all of these things and assimilate that into my voice.

Nanette McGuinness: 3:20

Has that changed over time?

Vivian Fung: 3:24

I mean, I think, for me, I consider myself a late bloomer, even though you know, on paper, it seems like you know, I had a pretty early sprouting, but But I consider myself a late bloomer, because of the fact that I just took me a long time for me to figure out all these things about where I fit in. Just even in the realm of concert music and all this training, but I had, you know, I got this traditional French sort of training with counterpoint and all that all the crap that you need to to traditionally become a composer. And then you ask yourself, what do you do with that, you know, and it took me a long time to figure out the my voice in the midst of all these other things that that I was trained to do, and it took me a long time because I had to unlearn a lot of things that I learned. And I think also what's difficult about my upbringing in my situation, is that I'm nearly tied to, I mean, being born in Canada and really, going through my schooling in the United States. There's a neutrality about the cultural upbringing, right? So you know, if you were born in China, there were certain things that you come into culturally that is very From but hear, you know, it can be a lot of different things and sort of this in between us neither being here nor there is it threw me off a lot and to come to terms with that took me a long time. And I think it resonates with a lot of people that, you know, immigrant families, not just, you know, Chinese American, what have you but but a lot of immigrant families whose children were born here and they associated with their family, but they don't necessarily associate with the cultural background of that family, you know, from from, from the original place that they were born. So there's a lot of in between us. And to figure that out. It's very tricky, in fact, and so, for me personally, it took me a long time.

Nanette McGuinness: 5:46

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Dawn Norfleet for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT Our concert season online and in the Bay Area where to make a tax deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors like you. "For Good Measure" is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and designed by Brennan Stokes. With special thanks to audio engineer extraordinaire Stephanie Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]