Chelsea Music Festival announces 2024 Composer-in-Residence Ania Vu

Chelsea Music Festival is thrilled to announce its 2024 Composer-in-Residence Ania Vu. The Chelsea Music Festival, “Connecting the Dots,” will weave compositions by Vu throughout the 2024 Festival on June 21, 24, 26, and 28, 2024, including two pieces for solo piano that the composer will perform herself on June 21 and 26, and a world premiere on June 28! Festival tickets go on sale Wednesday, May 15, 2024. For more information, visit https://www.chelseamusicfestival.org/2024/connectingthedots.

Multi-award winning composer and pianist, Vu, of Vietnamese descent, was born and raised in Poland and currently works as lecturer in composition at the University of Chicago. Her cross-cultural background strongly influences her music, which explores the interplay between sound properties of words and their meanings, the ways musical energy relates to form, and questions our notions of time.

Vu’s recent premiere at Tanglewood was described by the Boston Globe as an exhibition of “artful vocal writings [that] ranges from percussive whispers to glinting, pure-voice lines that […] blended elegantly into the roiling cauldron of strings.”

Vu has received recognition and fellowships from ASCAP, the American Opera Project, Copland House, Tanglewood, the Boston New Music Initiative, and the I-Park Foundation. Her work has been performed by the New Fromm players, the Grossman Ensemble, DanceWorks Chicago, the Mannes American Composers Ensemble (MACE), the Daedalus and Mivos spring quartets, among others.

2024 CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL LINE-UP

• Connecting the Dots— 15th Season Opening Night

• Friday, June 21 at 7pm at Genesis House, 40A 10th Ave, NYC

• World Premiere of A Night at Birdland by composer Nicky Sohn performed by WindSync

• Featuring Aizuri Quartet, pianist Andrea Lam, violinist Max Tan

• Chamber works by John Williams & Tebogo Monnakgotla & Ania Vu

• Performance of Dancing Stars by Augusta Read Thomas with conductor Ken-David Masur

• Patitucci & Friends — Jazz, Song & Chamber Music

• Monday, June 24 at 7pm at High Line Nine, 507 W. 27th Street, NYC

• Jazz bassist John Patitucci and pianist Renee Rosnes

• Austrian duo baritone Daniel Gutmann (prize winner at Elīna Garanča’s ZukunftsStimmen) & pianist Maximilian Kromer (International Brahms Competition winner) performing songs by Schumann (from their latest CD) and Ania Vu

• Featuring pianist Robert Fleitz (1st Prize in 2022 John Cage Award)

• Reception curated by Chef Rachel Snyder

• Completed Resonances— Vu, Beranek, Fauré & Smetana

• Wednesday, June 26 at 7pm at Czech Center, 321 E. 73rd Street, NYC

• World Premiere commissioned by the Festival by Czech composer Jacob Beranek featuring soprano Marisa Karchin and pianist Robert Fleitz

• Solo piano work by Ania Vu performed by Vu herself

• Piano Trio in G Minor by Bedřich Smetana (200th anniversary) performed by pianist Andrea Lam, violinist Max Tan, and cellist Angela Lee

• Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor by Gabriel Fauré (100th anniversary of his death)

• Reimagined Gems— Vignettes Across Time

• Friday, June 28 at 7pm at St. Paul’s German Church, 315 W. 22nd Street, NYC

• Festival Pre-Concert Talk (6pm) with Dr. Jessica Phillips-Silver (Growing Brains)

• Featuring Harlem Quartet performing Caroline Shaw and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

• World Premiere by Ania Vu featuring soprano Marisa Karchin

• Pieces from trumpet player Caleb Hudson’s 2024 album, Nothing Less, including Corelli arrangements

• Reception curated by Chef Rachel Snyder

All programming subject to change

Photos of artists are available for download here.

Banner Artwork includes a detail of a painting by Kelly S. Williams

Festival Sponsors & Partners: Arts & Minds, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Carl Brandt, Inc., Columbia Alumni Association Arts Access, Consulate General of Germany in New York, Fordham University, German International School New York, Harney & Sons, Growing Brains, Honeybrains, Insomnia Cookies, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Michael J. Fox Foundation, New School College of Performing Arts, New York State Council of the Art, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Polycast Productions,Rachel Snyder Hospitality, Radeberger Gruppe USA, Skylight Arts Productions, Steinway & Sons, Tarisio Fine Instruments & Bows, WBGO, WQXR, Wunderwein, Zuckerman Mind Brain Institute at Columbia University

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ABOUT THE CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL

Chelsea Music Festival celebrates great music by convening world-leading musicians & artists in the performing, culinary, and visual arts for an international audience. The Festival invites artists, composers, and performers to collaborate in pursuit of new perspectives in artistic expression. Inspired by its Chelsea roots, the Festival reflects the creativity of one of New York City's most dynamic neighborhoods. Programs span musical genres ranging from classical to contemporary to jazz with a special emphasis on Festival commissions by composers whose works are not in the traditional western canon. In addition, the Festival hosts an online library of recordings so music enthusiasts, artists, and students alike can explore unique interpretations of classical, jazz, and contemporary works via high-quality videos of world-class performances.

Since 2010, the Festival has established itself as a critically-acclaimed, accessible and interactive gateway to chamber music in non-traditional concert spaces such as art galleries, public squares, schools, and churches. Programming includes concerts, lectures, exhibitions, family events, and free outreach performances. In 2020, the Festival inaugurated its Online Encores and Online Originals YouTube series; Online Encores presents highlights from Festival archives while Online Originals presents new performances and recordings. We are proud to give emerging voices, particularly those of women and people of color, a stage and are working to build an audience and intimate community to support a new generation of musicians, composers, and artists.

The Chelsea Music Festival Artistic Directors are Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur.