VIET CUONG

(b. 1990)

A young composer described as “show-stealing” (Baltimore City Paper) and a “dazzler” (Broad Street Review), Viet has had works performed in venues across the United States, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, and Japan. Viet is currently a Naumburg and Roger Sessions Fellow in Princeton University’s doctoral program. At Princeton he has studied with Steve Mackey, Donnacha Dennehy, and Paul Lansky. Viet holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Oscar Bettison and Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts. During the Aspen and Bowdoin music festivals Viet studied with composers Sydney Hodkinson, Derek Bermel, and Robert Beaser. He is among the youngest group of composers to receive artist residencies from the Atlantic Center for the Arts (under Melinda Wagner), the Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo, where he was the 2013 recipient of the David del Tredici Residency.
 
Viet’s wind band work, Sound and Smoke, won the 2012 Walter Beeler Memorial Prize from Ithaca College and has received over twenty-five performances throughout the US, Japan, and Singapore since its premiere. Moth was commissioned by the Brooklyn Wind Symphony, and premiered by the group at the 2013 Midwest Clinic in Chicago, IL. Windmill was commissioned by the Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and was recently premiered by the group at the Cell Theatre in NYC. Other upcoming projects include new chamber works for London’s Nash Ensemble and Sandbox Percussion.
 
Viet’s music has been performed previously at the Aspen Music Festival, International Double Reed Society Conference, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music at the Bowdoin Music Festival, the US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, Midwest Clinic, CBDNA conferences, and the GAMMA-UT Conference. In addition to many university and music conservatory wind ensembles, his music has been performed by a number talented soloists and chamber musicians, including pianists Lisa Moore and Julia Sheriff, clarinetists Anthony McGill, Gleb Kanasevich, and Miles Jaques, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Trio La Milpa, Lunar Ensemble, and DAS Oboe, among others.
 
Viet was a winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize from Ithaca College, Dolce Suono Ensemble Young Composers Competition, Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association Grant, National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project, the Prix d’Été Composition Competition, and the Trio La Milpa Composition Competition. In addition, he received honorable mentions in the 2013 Harvey Gaul Composition Competition and the 2010 and 2012 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prizes. Scholarships include the Evergreen House Foundation scholarship, a 2010 Susan and Ford Schumann Merit Scholarship from the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the 2011 Bachrach Memorial Gift from the Bowdoin International Music Festival. While at Peabody, he received the Presser Undergraduate Scholarship, the Peabody Alumni Award, and the Gustav Klemm Award for excellence in composition.
 

Photo by Wasin Prasertlap