Vivian Fung is a Canadian born composer. Born in Edmonton, Canada, she began composition studies with Violet Archer and later studied with Narcis Bonet in Paris, France. She received her doctorate from The Juilliard School in New York in 2002, where her mentors included David Diamond and Robert Beaser.
She composes many different types of music to be performed by different groups, such as orchestras, operas, quartets, and pianists. Her music is drawn from many different cultures and she uses that inspiration to merge it with Western forms. Examples of such non-Western influences are Balinese, Javanese gamelan, and folk songs from minority regions of China. Her personal heritage has proven to play a strong role in her music.
Among her many achievements, she has received a multitude of awards and grants: the 2012 Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts’ Gregory Millard Fellowship, ASCAP, BMI, American Music Center, MAP Fund, Music Alive!, and the League of American Orchestras, American Composers’ Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Vivian has been composer-in-residence of the Delaware Chamber Music Festival, Music in the Loft chamber music series in Chicago, the San José Chamber Orchestra, and the Billings Symphony. Vivian Fung also completed residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Banff arts colonies, as well as residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She is also an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre.