Violin, Min-Young Kim
Cello, Thomas Kraines 

Commissioned by the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival 2020.

Dance Variations on a Theme by J.S.Bach (2020, rev. 2021)

I- Theme: Odd Gavotte
II- Animal Dance at a Carnival
III- Irish Step Dance
IV- Mode Swing Oberek
V- Walking on a Frozen Lake
VI- Late Autumn Waltz
VII- The Final Tango

Inspired by the theme of the Gavotte I from J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite no. 6 in D Major, this piece is a set of theme and variations that consists of contrasting character dance miniatures. It is a dance suite within a (baroque) dance suite also centered around the tonality of D that extends beyond social dances. From standard ballroom to national dances of Ireland and Poland, and from little animals frolicking at a carnival to slowly tiptoeing and sliding on a frozen lake, the piece aims to depict different types of physical motions through contrasting meter, accents, tempi, and of course, dances.

Dance Variations on a Theme by J.S. Bach for violin and cello (2020-21)

2+ for percussion, piano and fixed media

Alyssa Resh - percussion
Ania Vu - piano

From recital "Across Cultures and Time" by Wolf Humanities Center at UPenn. Nov. 10, 2021

2+ for percussion, piano and fixed media (2021)

Ania Vu - hushed, muted for Percussion Quartet (2021)

Performance by Sō Percussion at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jason Treuting
Adam Sliwinski
Eric Cha-Beach
Josh Quillen

Recorded by rec.today

Websites: 
http://ania.vu/    
https://sopercussion.com/ 
https://www.rec.today/

hushed, muted is a set of two miniatures that centers on the idea of brevity, pause, and repetition. Written during a hectic time period, the piece’s first movement, hushed, conveys the need for a state of quieting down and reflection, while the second movement, muted, is more playful through its mechanical and repetitive sounds, occasionally exhibiting short bursts of forcefulness.

hushed, muted, mov. I for percussion quartet (2021)

hushed, muted, mov. II for percussion quartet (2021)

Commissioned by the Boston New Music Initiative as the Call for Scores winner of the Commissioning Competition. 

Premiered on May 22, Lexington, MA.

This is Scene 3 from the opera "Through the Doors".

Music and Libretto by Ania Vu.

Conductor - John Masko
Soprano - Mary Mackenzie
Flute - Deirdre Viau
Clarinet - David Dziardziel
Violin - Arjun Mudan
Violoncello -Stephen Mortarotti
Percussion - Matt Sharrock
Piano - Shalun Li

Image by Modesta Gorol

Strange Birds for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano (2022)

Premiere of "feathered beings" on March 3, 2023 at the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL. Commissioned by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition. 

Grossman Ensemble
David Fulmer, conductor

feathered beings for Thirteen Players (2023)

small tenderness for vocal sextet and string quartet (2023)

Commissioned by the BSO and Joyce Linde in honor of Ellen Highstein

Conducted by Stefan Asbury

Soprano, Bridget Esler
Mezzo-sopranos, Bella Adamova and Gabriela Barkidjia
Tenors, Bradyn Debysingh and Nathaniel Bear
Bass-baritone, Jacob Heacock

Violins, Sage Park and Tiffany Wee
Viola, Elizabeth Doubrawa, viola
Cello, Benjamin Fryxell

small tenderness for vocal sextet and string qurtet (2023)

Premiered by David Bernat (violin) and Shalun Li (piano) at the Tanglewood Music Center as part of the "Piece a Day" concert in August 2022.

2022-08-13 1100AM CD1

A Lullaby for a Sleepless Boy for Violin and Piano (2022)

Song cycle premiered as a whole at the Penn Sound Collective at the University of Pennsylvania. December 2018

Mary-Liz O'Neill - mezzosoprano
Bryn Lutek, percussion
Ariel Magno da Costa, piano

The last song, "a może..." was first written for and premiered at the SoundSCAPE Festival in Cesena, Italy. July 2018

Mary-Liz O'Neill, mezzosoprano
Bryn Lutek, percussion
Ariel Magno da Costa, piano

The text of a może... originated from my choosing of certain homophones and similar sounding phonemes:
może my/możemy/morze/umrzemy. After having picked those, I constructed a narrative. I was also interested in
experimenting with the structure of the text, such as the addition and subtraction of syllables. Addition is about building up
from a single syllable to a whole sentence using homophones, and subtraction about removing the first syllable of every
subsequent line. For the last word of the subtracted phrase, I made sure to choose words that would still make sense on their
own, even after being deconstructed. For example, umrzemy (we'll die)--> rzemy, not a word, but sounds like że my (that we)--> 
 my (we). Another example would be z tęsknoty (from yearning)-->  no Ty (well you) --> Ty (you).

a może...

Song cycle premiered as a whole at the Penn Sound Collective at the University of Pennsylvania. December 2018

Paulina Swierczek, soprano
Andy Thierauf, percussion
Hanchien Lee, piano

The last song, "a może..." was first written for and premiered at the SoundSCAPE Festival in Cesena, Italy. July 2018

Mary-Liz O'Neill, mezzosoprano
Bryn Lutek, percussion
Ariel Magno da Costa, piano

Gra dźwięków, gra słów (Soundplay, wordplay) is a set of three Polish songs written for various combinations of soprano or
mezzo, piano, and percussion. All three songs primarily deal with the sounds and properties of the Polish language.
The first song is set to a tongue-twister stół z powyłamywanymi nogami (a convoluted way of saying a table with broken
legs), and plays extensively with the syllabic nature of the words.
The poem for the second song emerged from a phrase that uses several long vowel sounds and similar consonants: płakała
zapałka (a match was crying). This phrase set the tone for an intimate story, reminiscent of a childhood fable.
The text of a może... originated from my choosing of certain homophones and similar sounding phonemes:
może my/możemy/morze/umrzemy. After having picked those, I constructed a narrative. I was also interested in
experimenting with the structure of the text, such as the addition and subtraction of syllables. Addition is about building up
from a single syllable to a whole sentence using homophones, and subtraction about removing the first syllable of every
subsequent line. For the last word of the subtracted phrase, I made sure to choose words that would still make sense on their
own, even after being deconstructed. For example, umrzemy (we'll die)--> rzemy, not a word, but sounds like że my (that we)--> 
 my (we). Another example would be z tęsknoty (from yearning)-->  no Ty (well you) --> Ty (you).

12122018 - PSC - Rose Recital Hall

2. Płakała Zapałka

1. Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami

Premiered by the TAK ensemble at the Penn Sound Collective concert of graduate composers in March 2019.

Charlotte Mundy, soprano
Laura Cocks, flute
Carlos Cordeiro, clarinet
Marina Kifferstein, violin
Ellery Trafford, percussion

Recently, two ideas I enjoyed exploring separately in my pieces were the notion of time, and playing with the Polish language. “Tik-Tak” combines both. I wrote the text in Polish because “tak” bears several meanings, including yes, such as, as if, as much, etc.; moreover, there are countless of sayings involving the word “tak”, few of them being used here. In regard to the notion of time, this piece is about time passing by mercilessly -- independent of, and indifferent to any of our human events and interactions. Any meaningful moment that we would like to hold on to, vanishes irrevocably. No matter what happens, time goes on, as if nothing had happened. In addition to presenting my personal take on time, “Tik-Tak” also contains “Tak”, the sound I wanted to use in this piece, given it was written for the TAK ensemble.

Tik - Tak for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, and percussion (2019)

Premiered by the Iridium Quartet at the Red Note New Music Festival in Illinois State University, February 2019. 

Paul Nolen, saxophone soprano
Marcos Colon, alto saxophone
Paul Forsyth, tenor saxophone
Eric Lau, baritone saxophone

The piece attempts to bring a garden full of dragonflies to life. While small and delicate, they are vigorous and energetic: the music depicts these creatures moving around space, alternating between being further from and closer to our ear, and between clustered and spread out. It captures their quick flutter vibrations and their wings' fleeting color changes. To evoke these visual effects, the piece uses several parameters -- various registral spans, dynamics, and speed -- and features flutter-tonguing and trills.

Dragonflies for Saxophone Quartet, excerpt(2019)

This is an excerpt from "String Quartet no. 2". 

Performed by the Mivos Quartet at the Valencia International Performance Academy (VIPA). 

July 2019, Valencia, Spain.

Violin - Olivia de Prato, Maya Bennardo
Viola - Victor Lowrie Tafoya
Violoncello - Tyler J. Borden

VIPA 2019

String Quartet no. 2, excerpt (2019)

Commissioned and premiered by the Daedalus Quartet at the Penn Sound Collective concert of graduate composers in December 6, 2019.

Min-Young Kim, Mathilda Kaul, violin
Jessica Thompson, viola
Thomas Kraines, cello

I yearn, therefore I am for string quartet is inspired by a Polish poem “a może…” that I wrote in the summer of 2018. The narrative of the text is built on similar sounding words and homophones (może my/możemy/morze/umrzemy) and is about hope for the human survival. The poem inspired the music on multiple levels: (i) on a micro-level, specific pitches and techniques are assigned to specific words and syllables; (ii) on a meso-level, lengths of sections are either directly or inversely proportional to the lengths of verses (iii) finally, on a macro-level, the character of the music expresses the emotional meaning of the text. Although one can read the poem to enhance the listening experience of the music, both the poem and the music can exist as stand-alone works.

Ania Vu

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