Ensemble for These Times

Announces the Third Interview in its

2022 #MeetTheArtist Interview Series

with

Month-long Spotlights on California BIPOC Women Composers:

March 2022, with Vivian Fung

Photo: Geneviève Caron

San Francisco, CA—San Francisco contemporary music chamber group Ensemble forThese Times (E4TT) is proud to announce the continuation of the third season of its “#MeetTheArtist” interview series, which started on January 4, 2022. Each month between January and June, 2022, E4TT’s “#MeetTheArtist” interview series is spotlighting a single California BIPOC woman composer, who will be featured every
Monday of their respective month with posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook,Twitter, and LinkedIn) introducing them on the series and then providing information about their website, upcoming projects, specific works we’re currently listening to, link(s) to their music channels, etc. The highlight of the month will be the full interview (audio, video, or pdf, depending on the artist’s preference) on YouTube, Instagram, and E4TT’s website on the third Monday of the month, followed by a recap to bring the artist’s month to a close.

After inaugurating the new series on January 3, 2022 with Dawn Norfleet, and following with Juhi Bansal in
February, E4TT continues in March with Vivian Fung. E4TT’s 2022 #MeetTheArtist series is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov and subscribe to the California ArtBeat newsletter.

Why Focus E4TT’s 2022 Interviews on BIPOC women artists?

The marginalization of diverse creators, especially BIPOC women, is an inequity that prevails throughout our
society. Women composers are in particular need of advocacy, as their work is seriously underrepresented in
mainstream classical concerts, as repeatedly shown by programming statistics. Moreover, structural racism
continues to plague the classical music field: access and advancement opportunities for BIPOC composers are much fewer than for white composers, and, while women artists in other creative fields—even the performing arts—have witnessed impressive advances, women composers continue to struggle to gain a foothold in classical concert halls. Further, when BIPOC and women artists do have their music performed, it is most often relegated to "their" months or time periods: Black History (February), Women's History (March), and/or Latinx/Hispanic Heritage (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), rather than integrated into regular season programming. E4TT's 2022 #MeetTheArtist Interview Series with BIPOC women composers seeks to address these problems directly, by shining a spotlight on six Bay Area and California BIPOC women composers, giving them a public forum and opportunity to gain recognition about their artistry and the issues that concern them.

“#MeetTheArtist” Interview Series

Following the Summer 2020 success of a smaller set of curated interviews focusing on women creative artists— composer Elinor Armer, visual artist Corinne Whitaker, and soprano Chelsea Hollow—E4TT expanded its “#Meet the Artist” interview series in 2021 with month-long spotlights on individual BIPOC composers and musicians. Beginning on Monday, January 4, 2021, #MeetTheArtist featured a different BIPOC creative artist each month, with each featured every Monday of their respective month via posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), first introducing the artist into the series and then featuring information about their website, upcoming projects, specific works we’re currently listening to, and/or link(s) to their music channels, etc. The highlight of the month will be the full interview (audio, video, or pdf, depending on the artist’s preference) on YouTube, Instagram, and E4TT’s website on the third Monday, followed by a recap to bring the month to the close. The 2021 series began with composer and performer Pamela Z (b. 1956) and continued in February with composer and educator Jonathan Bailey Holland (b. 1974), March with Anthony R. Green (b. 1984), April with inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993), May with Sakari Dixon Vanderveer, June with Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1978), July with Shannon Sea, August with Marcus Norris (b. 1991), September with Brice Smith, October with Nicolas Lell Benavides (b.1987), November with Angélica Negrón (b. 1981) and December with Darian Donovan Thomas (b.1993).

E4TT began its third #MeetTheArtist series on January 3, 2022 with Dawn Norfleet. The 2022 series will run for the first six months of the year with Juhi Bansal, Vivian Fung, Valerie Liu, Erika Oba, and Monica Chew and will then be converted into a podcast.

#MeetTheArtist in March: Vivian Fung

JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers.” This is supported by many of her works, including Clarinet Quintet: Frenetic Memories, a reflection on her travels to visit minority groups in China’s Yunnan province; Earworms, commissioned by Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, which musically depicts our diverted attention spans and multi-tasking lives; and The Ice Is Talking for solo percussion and electronics, commissioned by the Banff Centre, using three ice blocks to illustrate the beauty and fragility of our environment. Fung has a deep interest in exploring cultures through travel and research. In early 2019, Fung traveled to Cambodia to connect with her roots and collect research for a new opera. She traveled to Southwest China in 2012 to study minority music and cultures, continuing research that previously inspired Yunnan Folk Songs (2011), commissioned by Fulcrum Point New Music in Chicago with support from the MAP Fund. As a composer whose trips often inspire her music, Fung has also explored diverse cultures in North Vietnam, Spain, and Indonesia. She toured Bali in 2004, 2008, and 2010, and competed in the Bali Arts Festival as an ensemble member and composer in Gamelan Dharma Swara.Passionate about fostering the talent of the next generation, Vivian Fung has mentored young composers in programs at the London Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Forum, San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. She recently received an “Outstanding Career Influencer” Award from Santa Clara University, where she serves on the composition faculty.

Ensemble for These Times is honored to have commissioned Fung to compose, “Shimmer” for percussion, to be premiered on April 9, 2022, on the group’s annual commissions program, “Dark Universe/ Mysterious Spaces,” at the new Bowes Center in SF, in collaboration with the SF Conservatory of Music’s Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) Department.

About Ensemble for These Times

Founded in 2007, Ensemble for These Times focuses on 20th and 21st century music that is relevant, engaging, original, and compelling, music that resonates today and will speak to tomorrow. E4TT strongly believes in the power of artistic beauty, intelligence, wit, lyricism, and irony to create a deep understanding of our times and the human condition, with women artists an ongoing focus. E4TT is committed to an inclusive, equitable, and diverse practice, and to ensuring that all communities—including those that have been historically underrepresented based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other factor—are represented in our artistic decisions and programming.

Winners of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, E4TT consists of award-winning soprano and Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, pianist Margaret Halbig, and Senior Artistic Advisor and San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty member, composer David Garner. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT’s critically acclaimed recordings include “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan,” which was released in 2020 in honor of the centennial of this seminal 20th century poet, and won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards. The group’s debut CD, “Surviving: Women’s Words,” released on the Centaur label in 2016, was also honored with a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards. E4TT’s second CD, “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (Centaur Records, 2018) won a Gold Medal in the Global Music Awards the year of its release. For more information about E4TT’s 2021/22 Bay Area Home Season, please visit our website.

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