"Yunnan Folk Songs" Selected as One of the Top 10 Performances in 2011
Chicago Classical Review's list of Top 10 Performances of 2011 included Fulcrum New Music Project's March 2011 concert which "deliver(ed) one of the finest contemporary programs of recent seasons with three world premieres. Most notable were Vivian Fung’s engaging Yunan(sic) Folk Songs...."
The Escher Quartet's performance of Fung's Pizzicato for String Quartet at the 2011 season premiere of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
"Vivian Fung's Pizzicato... filled with allusions to Chinese stringed instruments and Indonesian Gamelan rhythms, had an appropriately plucky account by the Escher String Quartet."
New York Times, September 27, 2011
"Yunnan Folk Songs" World Premiere
"Fung's Yunnan Folk Songs stood out... for how its complexity was put at the service of high level entertainment. The seven short pieces, each an interpretation of recordings sung by members of ethnic minorities in southwest China, conveyed a winning rawness that went beyond exoticism."
Chicago Tribune, March 24, 2011
Fung's "Yunnan Folk Songs" & Fulcrum Point New Music Project
"Yunnan Folk Songs is an engaging and delightful work crafted with great flair, with Fung’s skillful writing and scoring for voices and orchestra avoiding both pastiche and the stolid, overly respectful treatment of so many world-music inspired works."
Chicago Classical Review, March 24, 2011
Performance of Miniatures for Clarinet Quintet by Summerfest Chamber Music
“[Summerfest]… served up another winner… Fung’s “Miniatures” was a fascinating work, based on a folksong from the Uighur people of Western China. Scored for clarinet and string quartet, the work fused elements of modernism — harmonic dissonance and quarter-tones — with traditional elements of ornamented folk song. ”
Kansas City Star, July 25, 2010
Ying Quartet’s Performance at Weill Recital Hall
“The most memorable part of the ensemble’s concert on Friday evening was an encore from that disc: Vivian Fung’s ‘Pizzicato for String Quartet.’ Ms. Fung’s evocative work, inspired by Chinese and Asian instruments like the pipa and gamelan, features percussive gestures and a medley of plucked sounds, including strumming. At one point the musicians rapped their knuckles against the wood of their instruments.”
The New York Times. April 22, 2009
Review of Fulcrum Point’s Concert in Chicago, IL
“The most individual work was Vivian Fung’s Chanted Rituals, heard in its Midwestern premiere. East really does meet West in the Canadian composer’s chant-based work for trumpeter and two percussionists, and Burns displayed impressive chops as soloist in the jazz-inflected opening Dance, switching to flugelhorn for the atmospheric central Prayer.”
Chicago Classical Review, May 20, 2009
Review of the Ying Quartet’s Recent CD release on the Telarc Label
“I was particularly struck...by the rhythmically buoyant creations of composer Vivian Fung.”
San Francisco Chronicle, January 20, 2008
Pizzicato for String Quartet
“Pizzicato for String Quartet (2001) by Vivian Fung featured fetching passages of pizzicato, brilliantly played by the Yings. At moments when the plucked strings were gentle and unified, Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings came to mind.”
Kalamazoo Gazette, October 25, 2007
Pizzicato for String Quartet
“Next on the program was ‘Pizzicato for Strings,’... played entirely without the bow, requires a whole new glossary of pizzicato sub-techniques: the strings as well as the instrument body are struck, plucked, banged and slapped. The movement is delightfully witty, making us curious to hear the complete quartet.”
Classical Voice of North Carolina. January 21, 2007
Miniatures for Clarinet and String Quartet
“Vivian Fung's Miniatures for Clarinet and String Quartet take advantage of her Chinese heritage to produce some non-traditional (in the Western sense) harmony and melody that's quite compelling.”
David Hurwitz, Classics Today
Review of the Billy Collins Suite
Although I found the Jalbert and Fung works the most musically rewarding — the ones I want most to hear repeatedly — the entire CD, a generous 78-and-a-half minutes, is a fitting tribute to an important organization for new chamber music.”
Joe Milica of Enjoythemusic.com