Dennis Arp
Chapman’s new senior composer in residence brings a unique cultural perspective.
Chinary Ung doesn’t want to be the one and only ever again. So as the groundbreaking composer begins his new appointment in the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music at Chapman University, he’s determined to help develop a rich, diverse and growing musical community — at Chapman and beyond.
Ung was the lone voice in what he calls the first generation of Cambodian composers. In his new role as the Hall-Musco Conservatory’s senior composer in residence, Ung hopes to open the eyes of students “to see in a global way,” he says. “I want to show them options and ultimately help them find their own voices — help them add to the cultural mix.”
He wants the next generation of Cambodian composers to be at least 10 to 20 strong.
“I love to help guide young composers, and I’m looking forward to collaborating with the faculty and students at Chapman,” says Ung, DMA, whose daughter Sonika earned a degree in psychology from the University in 2011.
The first steps on that collaborative journey have already been taken. In the early 1990s, Ung mentored Sean Heim, now director of music theory/composition at the College of Performing Arts and the Hall-Musco Conservatory.
“We have remained close friends, colleagues and collaborators over the years,” says Heim, Ph.D. “We know each other’s minds on many issues. Chinary’s approach and aesthetic fit well with the rest of us in the composition area, making him a great choice for this appointment.”
Ung’s unique musical voice has developed over five decades of study and composition. He was born in Cambodia in 1942 but has lived in the United States since 1964, when he arrived in New York City — speaking virtually no English — to study clarinet at the Manhattan School of Music. He went on to earn his DMA from Columbia University and is now a Distinguished Professor at UC San Diego.
Heim calls his mentor “one of today’s most important living composers.” Ung’s compositions are testament to an ear that is remarkably open, and an imagination that draws together the seemingly disparate sounds and attitudes of contemporary concert music and Southeast Asian traditions.
Over the years, Ung’s work has earned him many prestigious honors, including the Grawemeyer Award, considered by many the Nobel Prize of music composition. Last year, the Asian Cultural Council presented him with the John D. Rockefeller Award. His work has been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program, Mutable Music and many other foundations.
At Chapman, Ung will present lectures, participate in concerts and advise the music composition department, serving as a liaison between students and faculty and internationally recognized composers and ensembles.
Whether he gets into the classroom at Chapman “is to be discussed,” Ung says, “but for sure one-on-one (teaching) would be ideal. That puts both students and myself in a position to achieve.”
In describing his teaching style, he doesn’t limit himself to musical terms.
“Perhaps we start with a sketch by a given student which to me represents, you might say, a broken mirror,” Ung says. “Both (student and teacher) have to collaborate to put the mirror back intact.” He finds joy in assisting and encouraging young composers.
“My role is to help them lift their musical voices in a compositional world, to reach out in the broadest strokes in a cultural scene outside what they know already,” he says. “That is where the energy comes from. That is at the heart of the exchange between young apprentices and instructors.”
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