Lucia Hwong
Encyclopedia
Lucia Hwong has earned distinguished credits as a composer and instrumentalist. She has created music for theater, film, television, dance and the concert stage.
and raised in Los Angeles, California
. Her grandmother was a grande dame of Chinese opera and her mother is international actress Lisa Lu
. Her first public performance was in concert, playing the pipa
, an ancient Chinese lute, at the age of six. She studied ethnomusicology, theater and dance at UCLA and Columbia University
.
She has chaired philanthropic events for organizations including the Women's Project, American Theatre Wing, Asia Society and Parrish Art Museum and has been on committees such as Southampton Hospital.
-winning Broadway
production of M. Butterfly
and Tony-nominated Golden Child
; as well as David Henry Hwang's New York Shakespeare Festival
presentations of Sound and Beauty
and The Dance and the Railroad
and the Obie Award
-winner FOB
. She composed the music for Iago and Venus Voodoo at Lincoln Center.
Hwong also scored the Mark Taper and McCarter Theatre premieres of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 and created a 12-tone fugue for Joyce Carol Oates
' The Perfectionist. Among her dance scores, Fierce Attachments debuted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
's Next Wave Festival. She also scored Ali MacGraw
's Yoga Mindbody and created music for the Guggenheim Museum
's Soho video wall.
Her music for television and film include Hiroshima (NBC
), Vietnam War Story (HBO), Forbidden Nights (Tiananmen Square massacre
) (ABC
), Paper Angels (Angel Island) (PBS), Jennifer's in Jail (girl gangs) (Lifetime), Lotus (women's emancipation in China) (AFI)
, Who Killed Vincent Chin? (racial murder) (1998 Oscar nomination: Best Documentary) and Silverlake Life-the View from Here (AIDS), honored with Sundance Film Festival
and Peabody awards.
Concert pieces include The Unwelcome and Rhythm of Your Pulse, commissioned and performed by the Women's Philharmonic.
Her two albums, House of Sleeping Beauties and Secret Luminescence were released on the (Private Music
) label. The Goddess Trilogy CDs of new age world music were released on her own label, Goddess Music, and received a Visionary Award in 2000.
magazine (September 1986) and The New York Times
(May 1986) included her in a list of America's exceptional new composers; and in 1993, she received the first Asian American Arts award from the Asian American Arts Alliance as Artist of the Year.
Composer Philip Glass
wrote, "a young generation of composers has begun to appear. And the thing which distinguishes them...is that they represent...dual tradition...perhaps really for the first time, or something new. Not a borrowing from one tradition or incorporating the sounds of another, but a real blending of Eastern and Western music. Lucia Hwong is such a composer."
Hwong is on the Board of The Women's Project and was honored at its Women of Achievement Awards on March 2, 2009. Mayor Bloomberg declared the day "Women's Project Day" by Proclamation. Lucia has chaired the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Women's Project Galas.
Biography
Hwong was born in HawaiiHawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
and raised in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Her grandmother was a grande dame of Chinese opera and her mother is international actress Lisa Lu
Lisa Lu
Lisa Lu is a Chinese-American actress and documentary producer.-Life and career:Lu was born in Peking, China . Beginning in her teens, she was active in Chinese opera, or Kunqu, before emigrating to the United States...
. Her first public performance was in concert, playing the pipa
Pipa
The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments . Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26...
, an ancient Chinese lute, at the age of six. She studied ethnomusicology, theater and dance at UCLA and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
She has chaired philanthropic events for organizations including the Women's Project, American Theatre Wing, Asia Society and Parrish Art Museum and has been on committees such as Southampton Hospital.
Compositions
Her music for theater includes the scores for the Tony AwardTony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production of M. Butterfly
M. Butterfly
M. Butterfly is a 1988 play by David Henry Hwang loosely based on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer....
and Tony-nominated Golden Child
Golden Child
Golden Child may refer to:* Golden Child, a 1997 song by DJ Sammy* The Golden Child, 1986 movie starring Eddie Murphy* Golden Child, 1998 play by David Henry Hwang...
; as well as David Henry Hwang's New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
presentations of Sound and Beauty
Sound and Beauty
Sound and Beauty is the omnibus title of two plays by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Hwang's fourth play, The House of Sleeping Beauties, was adapted from Yasunari Kawabata's novella House of the Sleeping Beauties. It tells the story of the narrator of that novella investigating the brothel...
and The Dance and the Railroad
The Dance and the Railroad
The Dance and the Railroad is a 1981 play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Hwang's second play, it depicts a strike in a coolie railroad labor camp in the mid-nineteenth century. The play premiered as part of a commission by the New Federal Theatre in 1981. It had its professional debut on...
and the Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
-winner FOB
FOB (play)
FOB is a 1980 Obie Award-winning play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Hwang's first play, it depicts the contrasts and conflicts between established Asian Americans and "fresh off the boat" newcomer immigrants...
. She composed the music for Iago and Venus Voodoo at Lincoln Center.
Hwong also scored the Mark Taper and McCarter Theatre premieres of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 and created a 12-tone fugue for Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
' The Perfectionist. Among her dance scores, Fierce Attachments debuted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
's Next Wave Festival. She also scored Ali MacGraw
Ali MacGraw
Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw is an American actress. She is known for her role in Love Story, for which she won a Golden Globe and received an Academy Award nomination.-Early life:...
's Yoga Mindbody and created music for the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
's Soho video wall.
Her music for television and film include Hiroshima (NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
), Vietnam War Story (HBO), Forbidden Nights (Tiananmen Square massacre
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
) (ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
), Paper Angels (Angel Island) (PBS), Jennifer's in Jail (girl gangs) (Lifetime), Lotus (women's emancipation in China) (AFI)
, Who Killed Vincent Chin? (racial murder) (1998 Oscar nomination: Best Documentary) and Silverlake Life-the View from Here (AIDS), honored with Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
and Peabody awards.
Concert pieces include The Unwelcome and Rhythm of Your Pulse, commissioned and performed by the Women's Philharmonic.
Her two albums, House of Sleeping Beauties and Secret Luminescence were released on the (Private Music
Private Music
Private Music is a United States record company founded in 1984 by experimental musician Peter Baumann, as a home for instrumental music. Initially signing such artists as Yanni, Suzanne Ciani, Patrick O'Hearn, and Baumann's former bandmates Tangerine Dream, the record label specialized in New Age...
) label. The Goddess Trilogy CDs of new age world music were released on her own label, Goddess Music, and received a Visionary Award in 2000.
| THEATER | 1998 | GOLDEN CHILD | Composer, Incidental Music | Broadway New York | |
| 1993 | TWILIGHT:LOS ANGELES 1992 | Composer, Arranger, Performer | McCarter Theater, Princeton, NJ | ||
| 1993 | THE PERFECTIONIST | Composer, Arranger, Performer | McCarter Theater, Princeton, NJ | ||
| 1993 | TWILIGHT:LOS ANGELES 1992 | Composer, Arranger, Performer | The Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Music Center | ||
| 1993 | SNAKE IN THE VEIN | Composer, Arranger, Performer | Blank Theatre Company, New York, NY | ||
| 1993 | THE PERFECTIONIST | Composer, Arranger, Performer | McCarter Theater, Princeton, NJ | ||
| 1992 | THE BIG ONE SHOT | Composer, Performer | Naked Angels Theatre, New York, NY | ||
| 1989 | VENUS VOODOO | Composer, Arranger, Performer | Lincoln Center, New York, NY | ||
| 1989 | M. BUTTERFLY | Composer, Arranger | Westbury Theatre, London | ||
| 1988 | M. BUTTERFLY | Composer, arranger, On-Stage Music Director | O'Neill Theatre, Broadway New York | ||
| 1983 | SOUND AND BEAUTY | Composer, Arranger, Performer | New York Shakespeare Festival | ||
| 1980 | F.O.B. | Composer, Music Director, Performer | New York Shakespeare Festival | ||
| 1980 | IAGO | Composer, Played Desdemona | Mitzi Newhouse Theater - Lincoln Center (NY); | ||
| 1979 | IAGO | Composer, Played Desdemona | Inner City Cultural Center (LA) | ||
| FILM | 2010 | GIVING BACK | Music Score | Giving Back Foundation | |
| 1999 | THE VENICE PROJECT | Musician | |||
| 1993 | SILVERLAKE LIFE:THE VIEW FROM HERE | Composer : Score | Sundance Film Festival | ||
| 1988 | LAWLESS LAND | Composer : Score | Roger Corman | ||
| 1988 | LOTUS | Actress | |||
| 1987 | WHO KILLED VINCENT CHIN | Composer : Score | |||
| 1987 | CHINA GIRL | Composer : Song | Vestron | ||
| 1987 | THE LAST EMPEROR | Actress: Featured Role Lady of the Book | |||
| 1985 | YEAR OF THE DRAGON | Composer : Title Music | |||
| 1984 | NOTHING LASTS FOREVER | Actress : Lunar Maiden | |||
| 1982 | HAMMETT | Musician : Pipa; Chinese music consultant to John Barry | |||
| TELEVISION | 1993 | THE WORLD OF LUCIA HWONG | Composer : Score | Time Warner Cable | |
| 1991 | JENNIFER’S IN JAIL | Composer : Score | Lifetime | ||
| 1990 | HIROSHIMA: OUT OF THE ASHES | Composer : Score | NBC | ||
| 1990 | FORBIDDEN NIGHTS | Composer : Score | CBS | ||
| 1989 | VIETNAM WAR STORY : THE LAST DAYS | Composer : Score | HBO / The Last Soldier | ||
| 1985 | PAPER ANGELS | Composer : Score | PBS/AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE | ||
| CONCERTS | 1996 | DRUM SONG | Composer-Lyrics by George C. Wolfe | Boys Choir of Harlem | |
| 1991 | THE UNWELCOME RHYTHM OF YOUR PULSE | Composer | Women’s Philharmonic San Francisco | ||
| 1989 | VENUS VOODOO | Creator, Composer, Performer | Lincoln Center | ||
| DANCE & MULTI MEDIA | 1995 | AKASHIC WEEKEND | Pipa performer | Event of Ira Cohen | |
| 1994 | ALI MACGRAW YOGA MIND & BODY | Composer : Score | M32 Music Co. | ||
| 1987 | FIERCE ATTACHMENTS | Composer : Score | BAM/Next Wave Festival | ||
| RECORDING | 1999 | GODDESS MYSTICAL VISIONS Vol.3 | Composer, arranger, performer | M32 Music Co. | |
| 1998 | GODDESS CELESTIAL REALMS VISIONS Vol.2 | Composer, arranger, performer | M32 Music Co. | ||
| 1998 | GODDESS AWAKENING VISIONS Vol.1 | Composer, arranger, performer | M32 Music Co. | ||
| 1994 | NEUROTRANSMITTER BATH | Composer | M32 Music Co. | ||
| 1987 | SECRET LUMINESCENCE | Composer, arranger, performer | Produced by Kurt Munkacsi | ||
| 1987 | NEO GEO | Pipa performer | Album of Ryuichi Sakamoto | ||
| 1984 | HOUSE OF SLEEPING BEAUTIES | Composer, arranger, performer | Private Music |
Awards and recognition
In 1978, Hwong received a Citation of Outstanding Contribution by the Board of Public Works of the City of Los Angeles. TimeTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine (September 1986) and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
(May 1986) included her in a list of America's exceptional new composers; and in 1993, she received the first Asian American Arts award from the Asian American Arts Alliance as Artist of the Year.
Composer Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
wrote, "a young generation of composers has begun to appear. And the thing which distinguishes them...is that they represent...dual tradition...perhaps really for the first time, or something new. Not a borrowing from one tradition or incorporating the sounds of another, but a real blending of Eastern and Western music. Lucia Hwong is such a composer."
Hwong is on the Board of The Women's Project and was honored at its Women of Achievement Awards on March 2, 2009. Mayor Bloomberg declared the day "Women's Project Day" by Proclamation. Lucia has chaired the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Women's Project Galas.
External links
- http://www.hamptonsheet.com/June2009/parties/achievingWomen_party.htm
- http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.194/review-1.194
- http://www.manhattansociety.com/guestbook_Aug06.pdf