Biography
Byron Au Yong (歐陽良仁) creates 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 and political all at once." Seattle Weekly says his “interdisciplinary works are as exquisite and imaginative as they are unclassifiable.” Dedicated to intercultural collaboration, Au Yong creates with an attention to acoustic ecology, the American dream, and the ways people connect with the places they call home.
Highlights include Activist Songbook (Asian Arts Initiative, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Montalvo Arts Center), Stuck Elevator (American Conservatory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre), Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas (Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts) and Piano Concerto–Houston (CounterCurrent Festival). He has been composer-in-residence with the A/P/A Institute at NYU, the Center for Migration and the Global City at Rutgers, Lucas Artists Residency, TheatreWorks, Westminster Choir College, and Sundance Institute.
- 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
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Asian Americans in Opera: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives” Oxford Research Encyclopedias, January 2020. doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.938
Shimakawa, Karen. “Staging a Moving Map in Byron Au Yong’s and Aaron Jafferis’s Stuck Elevator.” Neoliberalism and Global Theatres, 2012, 97–112. doi.org/10.1057/9781137035608_7
Au Yong, Byron. “Thinking of Gloria’s Cause through an Empire of Illusion.” On the Boards Journal, December 7, 2010. ontheboards.org/blog/thinking-glorias-cause-through-empire-illusion
Au Yong, Byron. “Challenging Nostalgia: Unveiling the Ghosts of Seattle's Nippon Kan.” TDR/The Drama Review 48, no. 2 (2004): 91–107. doi.org/10.1162/105420404323063418
- Awards & Distinctions
Artist Trust Fellowship
Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award
Creative Capital Award
MAP Fund Award
Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellow
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