Violin Concerto No. 3
Violin Concerto No. 3 will expand on ideas from a solo work for violin and electronics (to be written in 2026), commissioned by violinist Nancy Zhou with funding from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation and private donors. The electronics and source material are gathered from videos and sound made during a June, 2025 trip that Nancy and Vivian took to Nancy’s maternal birthplaces - mother and grandmother - in the Buoyi minority villages in the mountains of Guizhou province, China.
The concerto will be for orchestral forces with or without electronics and video. Nancy Zhou’s manager, Earl Blackburn, is spearheading the consortium effort.
Premiere:
Solo work: Early 2027
Full concerto with orchestra: 2027-2028 or later. Consortium is currently being developed
Duration: approximately 20 minutes
Project and Piece Details
“Galvanized by my identity as an American citizen and musician of Chinese heritage, I endeavor to use music as a vehicle for the exploration of cultural identities in a global era defined significantly by US-China relations. It is in this spirit of unity in diversity that I will embark upon a deeply personal and interdisciplinary project that explores the intersection of cultural exchange, artistic expression, and the reclaiming of my mother’s personal heritage - one that is rooted in Chinese folk minority culture and its traditions. It is my heartfelt hope that through this project, I will discover anew the strong bond I share with my mother and her past identity, and in turn contribute to the greater symbiosis between folk culture and a global civilization; between personal identity and social identity.”
— Nancy Zhou
“The Violin Concerto No. 3 will expand on ideas from the solo work and be enlarged for orchestral forces, with or without electronics or video. Nancy and I, along with our families, went to Guizhou, China this past summer to visit the birthplace of Nancy’s mother and grandmother, both of Bouyi minority ancestry. We collected music, dance, and inspirations from the trip and I will use this as the basis of both versions.”
— Vivian Fung
