Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation: Vivian Fung Writes a Work for Solo Violin and Electronics for Nancy Zhou
"The goal is a strong symbiosis between popular culture and global civilization, between personal and social identity.” — Nancy Zhou
Commissioned by the ASM Foundation for Nancy Zhou
Vivian Fung writes a work for solo violin and electronics — premiere 2026
From 2008 to 2018, the violinist Nancy Zhou (31) was an official scholarship holder of the Circle of Friends. Today she holds a professorship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and was artist-in-residence of the Santa Cruz Symphony for the 2023/2024 concert season. She also gives solo concerts, especially in the USA and Asia, where she completed a tour of Taiwan in June.
As with the other former scholarship holders, Anne-Sophie Mutter remains in close contact with Zhou. And so the Texas-born violinist asked the board of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation for financial support for a commissioned composition. "Inspired by my identity as an American citizen and musician of Chinese descent, I seek to use music as a means to explore cultural identities in a global era largely determined by US-China relations. In this spirit of unity in diversity I will undertake a deeply personal and interdisciplinary project that explores the intersection of cultural exchange, artistic expression, and the remembrance of my mother's personal heritage -- a heritage that is ingrained in Chinese minority culture and traditions. "I hope with all my heart that through this project I can rediscover the strong bond that I share with my mother and her past identity and thus contribute to a greater symbiosis between popular culture and global civilization, between personal and social identity," explains Zhou in her expose.
For Zhou, the interaction between music and dance is just as important as the socio-cultural impact in this project. "My fascination for these two forms of expression has always been latent, even innate, and I hope that through this project this fascination will transform into the driving force of my life's work."
Zhou's mother belongs to the Bouyei, an ethnic minority that lives primarily in Guizhou Province in the south of the People's Republic of China. The census in 2010 counted almost three million Bouyei. Before migrating to the United States, Zhou's mother was a member of a folk dance group in Guiyang, the provincial capital.
In 2025, Zhou will visit the annual Sanyuesan Festival and the surrounding area with videographer Sophie Zhai, composer Vivian Fung and project manager Earl Blackburn to study and document the cultural customs and music of the Bouyei.
"The interaction of music and dance is just as important in this project as the socio-cultural aspects." – Nancy Zhou
This will result in a short film that can possibly also be used as a media supplement to the composition. And: This source material is the basis for the sound world of Fung's composition.
The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation contributes to the fee for the composer Vivian Fung. The work is designed for solo violin and electronics and should be around 25 minutes long.
Fung (47) is a Juno Prize-winning Canadian-born composer who has written music for orchestra, opera, quartet and piano. Her compositions have been performed internationally. She has received a number of awards and fellowships, including the 2012 Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Gregory Millard Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as from ASCAP, BMI, and the American Music Center.