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Meet the Composer
Cadence Chung

In this series, we present our new composers. We are proud to introduce Cadence Chung.

Kia ora Cadence, please tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. 

I'm Cadence Chung, a classical mezzo-soprano, poet, writer, and composer. I'm currently studying Classical Performance at the New Zealand School of Music -- my overall studies in Classical Performance and English Literature will conclude in 2025. The start of my music journey was when I performed at my school talent show at age nine, and I think I've been a poet since I could read.

I started composing as a way to blend my love of poetry and music, so I focus on writing art songs. As a singer, I'm really keen on writing works that are comfortable and idiomatic for the voice. I especially love working with my poet friends and setting their work to music -- I have only ever written works with words by living poets!

I've produced several original stage shows, created two books, and received awards such as the FAME Emerging Practitioner Award, Ruth and Oswald L Kraus Innovator-in-Residence Award, the Kapiti Chorale Prize, and the Victoria University Tangiwai Scholarship for Excellence. I'm always excited to find new ways to blend art forms; I never want to just stick to one.

Please choose 2-3 of your works and tell us more about them. 

Mythos

As part of the inaugural Ruth and Oswald L Kraus residency at Wai-te-Ata Press in 2023, I produced the book 'Mythos', an anthology of art by young New Zealanders. This book features music scores, song lyrics, poems, and visual art from emerging Aotearoa artists. It was also made into an album, in which you can hear the poets reading their own work, the compositions being performed, and the visual artists describing their processes.

 

Three Spells

Commissioned by Verb Festival in 2023, I wrote the short song cycle 'Three Spells', for baritone, flute, and piano. This was my first collaboration with poet Jackson McCarthy, who I now work with regularly. I first came across these poems in Starling Magazine when I was in high school, and found myself full of admiration and jealousy. When Jackson came to Wellington to begin tertiary studies, I instantly befriended him and I began to experiment with setting his works. This cycle reflects the lyric self presented in the poems, oscillating between desire and hesitancy, reality and dreams.

 
What We Owe to Each Other

This song cycle for soprano and mezzo-soprano is set to poems by my friend Pippi Jean. It was my first go at writing art songs rather than pop songs, and the poems were written when Pippi was very young, so the whole cycle has a youthful, juvenile feel. It loosely follows two young lovers, cataloguing nature, cities, and femininity. It was first performed at Cud-Chewing Country, a concert of contemporary art songs that I organised with Kassandra Wang. I sang the mezzo part, with Sarah Mileham on the soprano part and Amelia Lin on the piano.

 

 

What are you working on at the moment? (If you can’t talk about that yet: what have you completed recently and when will people be able to hear it?

I'm working on a song cycle for soprano and piano called 'Nightsongs', a short collection of songs about the night. It will feature poems by Maia Armistead, Jackson McCarthy, and myself. I'm writing it specifically for the lovely soprano Sarah Mileham, who has been so supportive of me ever since we met through our voice studies. I hope to deliver it to her in person at New Zealand Opera School this summer.

Where can people connect with you? 

My website
Instagram: @cadencebc
Twitter: @cadence_chung
Facebook is just Cadence Chung.