Biography
Composer Byron Au Yong (歐陽良仁) writes music for chamber ensembles, moving choirs, contemporary dance, short films, museum installations, site-specific locations, taiko groups, and theater performances. Variety calls his work "claustrophobic and expansive, intimate and existential, personal andpolitical all at once." Highlights include Activist Songbook (Asian ArtsInitiative, Hopkins Center for the Arts, International Festival of Arts & Ideas), Stuck Elevator (American Conservatory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre), Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas (Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts) and Piano Concerto–Houston (CounterCurrent Festival).
Au Yong has been an artist-in residence with the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, the Center for Migration and the Global City at Rutgers, Lucas Artists Residency, Sundance Institute, and Yale Institute for MusicTheater. His research and teaching incorporate acoustic ecology, deep listening, ethical entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, music theory, and the performing arts. The Seattle Weekly says Au Yong's “interdisciplinary works are as exquisite andimaginative as they are unclassifiable.”
- Education
- New York University, MFA in Musical Theatre Writing, 2005
- University of California, Los Angeles, MA in World Arts and Cultures/Dance, 2003
- University of Washington, BA/BM in Music Composition/Theory, 1996
- Experience
- Adjunct Faculty, Cornish College of the Arts
- Teaching Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles
- Public Program Manager, Wing Luke Museum
- Selected Publications
Au Yong, Byron. "Making Activist Songbook Virtual," Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Scholarship, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2021).
Au Yong, Byron. "Mò Shēng 墨声 Ink Sound." UCLA: Music Library. (2020).
Au Yong, Byron. "Welladay! Welladay! Wayward Love Songs." UCLA: Music Library. (2020).
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Asian Americans in Opera: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives” Oxford Research Encyclopedias, January 2020.
Au Yong, Byron. “Challenging Nostalgia: Unveiling the Ghosts of Seattle's Nippon Kan.” TDR/The Drama Review 48, no. 2 (2004): 91–107.
- Awards & Distinctions
Artist Trust Fellowship
Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award
Creative Capital Award
MAP Fund Award
Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellow
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Award
Time Warner Foundation Fellowship
MEDIA
- Arts & Ideas Gets An Activist Soundtrack, New Haven Arts, May 2020
- How Songs Became Powerful Weapons, South China Morning Post, December 2019
- United We Stand, USF News, October 2019
- Of Forests and Metal: Interview with Composer Byron Au Yong, Cal Shakes, September 2018
- Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis write useful protest music, Artblog, May 2018
- "New Theater Piece Explores Gun Violence,” NPR Weekend Edition, April 2017
- Commissioning Journeys: When the Place Shapes the Music, Chorus America, Sept 2015
- Water Music, Seattle Weekly, August 2008