“The Music She Writes: A Celebration of Asian Female Composers” Series Begins April 1

When composer Ania Vu ’17E  first heard about the Eastman Centennial Celebration “100 Concerts to Celebrate 100 Years”, she forwarded the website to pianist Eunmi Ko ’06E (MM), ’12E (DMA), to which Eunmi replied with “We should do something!”

Fast-forward seven months: the two are about to have their project The Music She Writes begin on April 1^st and continue through May 13^th.

The Music She Writes celebrates the diversity and significance of music by Asian Female Composers within the contemporary music landscape. It is a series of four virtual concerts featuring 25 works by living female composers across Asia. It will be broadcast on the Eastman School of Music’s YouTube channel every other Friday at 7PM ET on April 1st, 15th, 29th, and May 13^th. Some of the featured composers are Chen Yi, Vivian Fung, Du Yun, Kamala Sankaram, Juri Seo, and Nina Shekhar. Admission to all events is free.

Through this project, Ania and Eunmi hope to shed light to the music written by a large, yet underrepresented community, and to bring together and celebrate composers coming from diverse stylistic and geographical backgrounds. The concert series encompasses a large body of works, ranging from solo to chamber, vocal, electronic, multimedia, and film music.

The compositions are grouped into four different themes for each concert:

Concert 1: Where There are Mountains, Snow, and Trees (April 1, 7 p.m. ET)

Music by Vivian Fung, Yi-Ning Lo, Yuting Tan, Miho Sasaki, Hong Anh Dang, and Chi Wang

Concert 2: What is Lost and What Remains (April 15, 7 p.m. ET)

Music by Wang Lu, Akari Komura, Soomin Kim, Anahita Abbasi, Chen Yi, and Ching-Shan Chang

Concert 3: Old Made Anew (April 29, 7 p.m. ET)

Music by Nina Shekhar, Emily Koh, Chihchun Chi-sun Lee, Juhi Bansal, Zoe Yucong Wang, Jon Lin Chua, and Juri Seo

Concert 4: Giving a Voice (May 13, 7 p.m. ET)

Music by Serin Oh, SiHyun Uhm, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Pamela Martinez, Ania Vu, Kamala Sankaram, and Du Yun

In addition, there will be a Zoom Discussion/Mingle on May 13th at 8PM after the final concert in which all participating composers, performers, and audience members are invited to join. It will be a space for everyone to connect, ask questions, share impressions of the events, and potentially discuss ideas for future projects.

As Eastman alumni, Ania and Eunmi are very grateful and proud to be able to celebrate their alma mater’s centennial and their shared vision through Eastman’s Departmental Diversity Initiative Grant. They hope that this virtual concert series is only the beginning of something that will continue to grow in the future.