Lucia Hwong is an American composer and instrumentalist. She has created music for theater, film, television, dance and the concert stage.

Biography

Hwong was born in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

and raised in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Her grandmother was a grande dame of Chinese opera and her mother is international actress

Lisa Lu Lisa Lu Yan (; born January 19, 1927) is a Chinese actress. She won the Golden Horse Awards three times in the 1970s. She is the only person who is a member of both the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts ...

. Her first public performance was in concert, playing the

pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rang ...

, an ancient Chinese lute, at the age of six. She studied ethnomusicology, theater and dance at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

from 1978 to 1982, graduating with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' in ethnomusicology. She has chaired philanthropic events for organizations including the Women's Project, American Theatre Wing, Asia Society and Parrish Art Museum and has been on committees such as Southampton Hospital. She was married to investment banker Peter Gordon (1942-2020), with whom she had two daughters.

Compositions

Her music for theater includes the scores for the

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

-winning

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

production of ''

M. Butterfly ''M. Butterfly'' is a play by David Henry Hwang. The story, while entwined with that of the opera ''Madama Butterfly'', is based most directly on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Peking opera singer. T ...

'' and Tony-nominated '' Golden Child''; as well as David Henry Hwang's

New York Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Park (or Free Shakespeare in the Park) is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at the Delacorte Theater, an open-air theater in New York City's Central Park. The theater and the productions ar ...

presentations of ''

Sound and Beauty ''Sound and Beauty'' is the omnibus title of two plays by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Hwang's fourth play, ''The House of Sleeping Beauties ''The House of Sleeping Beauties'' is a 1983 play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Hwa ...

'' and ''

The Dance and the Railroad ''The Dance and the Railroad'' is a 1981 play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. His second play, it depicts a strike in a coolie railroad labor camp in the mid-nineteenth century American West. The play premiered as part of a commission by ...

'' and the

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

-winner '' FOB''. She composed the music for ''Iago'' and ''Venus Voodoo'' at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

. Hwong also scored the Mark Taper and McCarter Theatre premieres of Anna Deavere Smith's '' Twilight: Los Angeles 1992'' and created a 12-tone fugue for

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

' ''The Perfectionist.'' Among her dance scores, ''Fierce Attachments'' debuted at the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

's Next Wave Festival. She also scored

Ali MacGraw Elizabeth Alice MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) is an American actress and activist. She gained attention with her role in the film ''Goodbye, Columbus'' (1969), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She gained an ...

's ''Yoga Mindbody'' and created music for the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

's Soho video wall. Her music for television and film include ''Hiroshima'' (

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

), ''Vietnam War Story'' (

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

), ''Forbidden Nights'' (

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

) (

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

), ''Paper Angels'' (Angel Island) (PBS), ''Jennifer's in Jail'' (girl gangs) ( Lifetime), ''Lotus'' (women's emancipation in China) (AFI), ''Who Killed Vincent Chin?'' (racial murder) (1998 Oscar nomination: Best Documentary) and '' Silverlake Life: the View from Here'' (AIDS), honored with

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

and Peabody awards. Concert pieces include ''The Unwelcome'' and ''Rhythm of Your Pulse'', commissioned and performed by the Women's Philharmonic. Her two albums, ''House of Sleeping Beauties'' and ''Secret Luminescence'' were released on the

Private Music Private Music was an American independent record label founded in 1984 by musician Peter Baumann as a "home for instrumental music". Baumann signed Ravi Shankar, Yanni, Suzanne Ciani, Andy Summers, Patrick O'Hearn, Leo Kottke, and his former ...

label. ''The Goddess Trilogy'' CDs of new-age music were released on her own label, Goddess Music, and received a Visionary Award in 2000.

Discography

The works of Lucia Hwong

Recognition

In 1978, Hwong received a Citation of Outstanding Contribution by the Board of Public Works of the City of Los Angeles. ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine (September 1986) and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' (May 1986) included her in a list of America's exceptional new composers; and in 1993, she received the first Asian American Arts award from the Asian American Arts Alliance as Artist of the Year. Composer

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

wrote, "a young generation of composers has begun to appear. And the thing which distinguishes them...is that they represent...dual tradition...perhaps really for the first time, or something new. Not a borrowing from one tradition or incorporating the sounds of another, but a real blending of Eastern and Western music. Lucia Hwong is such a composer." Hwong is on the Board of The Women's Project and was honored at its Women of Achievement Awards on March 2, 2009. Mayor Bloomberg declared the day "Women's Project Day" by Proclamation. Lucia has chaired the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Women's Project Galas.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hwong, Lucia American women composers 21st-century American composers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American people of Chinese descent Private Music artists UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Musicians from Hawaii Musicians from Los Angeles Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women musicians 21st-century women composers