Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang
Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang is another of the resident composers helping to put the “international” into this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival.
A native of Taiwan, Ashley comes to the MICF via the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she’s studying for a Doctor of Musical Arts degree. Ashley also holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and SooChow University, and her work draws on an eclectic musical palette, ranging from Western and non-Western classics to jazz and pop.
In a statement on her website, she says she seeks to “capture the transience of momentary beauty and individual identity through the juxtaposition of musical oppositions and through constant transformation and flow, revealing complexity within simplicity.”
Ashley’s composition “Illusional Control” will be one of eight new pieces from this year’s resident composers to get a world premiere from Alarm Will Sound at the festival’s grand finale.
Some of her other recently performed works include “Antares Falling,” which was played by the Locrian Chamber Players in May at Riverside Church in New York City, and is set to be performed again in October during the 35th annual Bowling Green New Music Festival; and “Meta-Meta,” commissioned by Nicolas Horvath and performed in April as part of the GlassWorlds Homage Project at the Palais de Tokyo Museum in Paris, France. Also, her composition “Lost Touch With Oneself,” was played in June at the Errant Bodies project space in Berlin, Germany.
Ashley’s music has been performed across North America, Europe, and Asia at venues including Carnegie Hall, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Aspen Music Festival, MASS MoCA, Logos Foundation, Herz Jesu-Kirche, Kitara Hall, and Hong Kong Arts Centre. She has collaborated with performers such as Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Brooklyn Rider String Quartet, MIVOS Quartet, conductors David Gilbert, Brad Lubman, Paul Chiang, and visual artists Alice Grassi and Takeshi Moro.
Ashley has been a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, Domaine Forget, Composit Music Festival, MusicX Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Pacific Music Festival, Tutti New Music Festival, Bang on a Can Music Festival, Festival of Women Composers, and the Society of Composers National Conference, and an associate artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Her honors and awards include the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music competition, 21st century piano commission, Look and Listen Festival Composition Prize, an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, and a Composer Assistance Program of New Music USA Award, among others. Her music has been recorded on the ArpaViva Foundation Inc label and received radio airpaly on WQXR, and WNYC, and her scores are available on BabelScores.
You can hear Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang’s music on her website, and see a performance of “Antares Falling” in the video window below.
“Antares Falling,” recorded February 12, 2014 at the Krannert Center for Performing Arts in Urbana, IL, featuring Ya-Wen Wang (piano) and Melody Chua (flute).