Anthony Cheung is the Luciano Berio Rome Prize Winner in Musical Composition and an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago.
What part of the United States did you come from?
I was born and raised in San Francisco, and have lived in Cambridge, MA and New York since 2000.
Why did you apply for the Rome Prize?
Several friends have recently been composition fellows and I’ve heard about and seen the positive effects of the Fellowship on their output and general outlook on life! The opportunity to be here for an extended period to focus on larger-scale projects while being in the midst of such a diverse and interesting group of people and the artistic splendors of this city made it particularly attractive. It’s exceeded all of my expectations thus far.
To what extent, if any, has your proposed project changed since your arrival?
My proposal was initially in two parts: the completion of a work titled SynchroniCities for chamber ensemble and pre-recorded and processed sounds, as well as a research project into the practice of transcription in jazz as aided by recording technology, and how it has affected the reception, epistemology, and teaching of the music. The piece was completed in the first few months and recently premiered and recorded in New York with the Talea Ensemble, a group for which I serve as artistic director. But a more recent commission for the New York Philharmonic has effectively postponed the research project into the future. I’ll be working intensely on this new piece for most of the rest of my time here.
Have you had any "eureka!" moments or unanticipated breakthroughs in the course of your work here?
In particular, I was thinking a lot about cultural or timbral commonalities in the types of sounds I was incorporating into my piece (primarily through the use of recorded samples, from all kinds of sources), but the temporal aspect eluded me. How could I convey traditions from different eras simultaneously, and how could they directly feed into one another to form a new whole? In many of the monuments and buildings I’ve come into contact with, layers of history co-exist through spolia, chronology is jumbled, one thing is appropriated for something else. I began using that idea in my use of live-processing of sounds. The same infamous Auto Tune feature that’s used to make certain pop singers sound less out of tune can also be configured to “correct” to different historical and cultural tuning practices in real-time. Then I discovered that a piano Franz Liszt often used resides in the Academy’s cryptoporticus. Most of its keys don’t go down, and it is wonderfully out of tune, so much so that it sounds like an entirely new instrument. I made many recordings of its aural “ruins,” some of which made their way into my piece, one of the many examples of musical spolia I ended up using.
How do you anticipate your Rome Prize Fellowship will influence future work?
Meeting the other fellows and getting to know their work has been one of the most rewarding aspects of this year. When you share so many meals and common experiences together, your work is affected in parallel ways, no matter how different the medium or aesthetic. I certainly foresee and welcome the possibility of collaboration down the road.
What is your favorite spot at the Academy? or in Rome?
I’ll be unoriginal and say the studio, but it’s true. My space in the back of the Casa Rustica is secluded and intimate. I feel like I can go to work there and be happily lost. And what a luxury to have a grand piano in the studio; that’s never been the case for me. But I’m also a pianist, so it can be the ultimate distraction, of the good kind.