MUSIC COMPOSITION
Bachelor of Music in Music Composition from the USC Thornton School of Music. 
Studied composition with Dr. Veronika Krausas, Prof. Tamar Diesendruck, Prof. Frederick Lesemann and Prof. Frank Ticheli.
1st Prize in the San Francisco Choral Artist's (SFCA) New Voice Project .  SFCA premiered Breathe, an 8-divisi a cappella, at three concerts in the Bay Area,  Oakland, Palo Alto and San Francisco, California.

ACOUSTIC COMPOSITIONS

Breathe  (program notes and recording by the San Francisco Choral Artists)
"Anna Huang’s Breathe, the first-place prize winner in our New Voices Competition for composers under thirty, works with the most fundamental musical element for singers: breath. The composer and poet set up a series of struggles and release: seek health not wealth, enjoy the love around you, not the imagined. With short notes in irregular patterns, the composer shows the struggle, and with layers of long notes shows the release of breathing".
“I love the way this piece captures the continuous, mysterious, and wave-like qualities of the breath; the music and poetry challenge me to stay present.” – Meghan Spyker

Text for Breathe by Brandon Marc Higa
Breathe deep without a wheeze
And let the clean crisp air
Clear the despair
Instead of chasing wealth
Cherish my health
Instead of chasing love
Hold my friends and family above
What ifs
Become what are
And suddenly, I am content

Later  performed by soprano, Hilary Fraser-Thomson, Erin Colwitz, alto, Debra Penberthy, T.J. Harper,
tenor, Matthew Brown, Chris Delp, and bass, Kevin Simpson, Paul Sobosky
@ my senior composition recital, Alfred Newman Recital Hall
@ USC Music @ Noon Concert Series, United University Church
The first draft was performed by vocalist Angela Vicente, Hillary Fraser-Thomson, Ki Yong Park, Brad Bettis, Michael Early, Travis Stevens @ USC Composition Department Recital, Alfred Newman Recital Hall


The following compositions were performed at the USC Thornton School of Music Composition Student Showcase from fall 2003 to spring 2006, and also at my senior composition recital, all in Alfred Newman Recital Hall.

Fuguenza (2004)  Fuguenza is a fugue for two clarinets and a bass clarinet.  The subject is based on Berio’s Sequenza IXa” for clarinet, and the entrances highlight the spirit of atonal subjects entering through the circle of fifths as in Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste”.

premiered by clarinet, Timothy Dodge and Raymond Santos   bass clarinet, Andrew Leonard

also performed by clarinet, Andrew Leonard and  Raymond Santos    bass clarinet, Alicia Lee

Miniatures of Lewis Carroll (2006-2003)  “Punctuality", “Beautiful Soup”, “A Lay of Sorrow" are three miniatures written for mezzo soprano and clarinet.  They are part of a song cycle based on texts by Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in the Wonderland”.  The text settings are inspired by the nature of a child’s playfulness.  This is achieved through text repetition, the switching of syllabic order of words, and also deconstructing words into just their vowel components.  The vocal part represents the child, often distracted by the world around her.  Her attention slowly drifts.  The clarinet tries to bring her back on track.  They end with “Better to be be be …” leaving the audience to choose their own answer.

“Punctuality" premiered by  mezzo soprano, ??    clarinet, Andrew Leonard @ Ground Zero.

“Beautiful Soup” premiered by  soprano, Erin Wilson    clarinet,  Emily Cummins.  The duo also performed “Punctuality".

 “A Lay of Sorrow" premiered by mezzo soprano, Angela Vicente    clarinet, Andrew Leonard.  The duo also performed “Punctuality" and “Beautiful Soup”.
 

excerpts from “Punctuality” (1845) by Lewis Carroll
Better to be before you time, than to be behind.
Man naturally loves delay, and to procrastinate.
Let every hour be its place.  Enjoy the vacant space, as though a birthday gift.
Let no one ever see, e’em from a fading flower.

excerpts from “Turtle Soup” (1865) by Lewis Carroll
Beau-ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo-oop of the e-e-evening.

excerpts from “A Lay of Sorrow"  by Lewis Carroll
The day was wet.  The rain fell souse, like jars of strawberry jam.

The Butterfly Effect (2004)  This mixed quartet for flute, bassoon, violin and double bass, travels through time to change the past, only to find that a change as subtle as “a flip of a butterfly wing” can cause unpredictable chaos in the future.
The music restarts abruptly multiple times by going back to previous materials with changes.  The music is also additive to show that the effect of everything that happened in the past determines where we are at present.
The two dotted rhythms used extensively represent contradicting desires.  The short- long dotted notes are desperate for change.  The reverse is reluctant to change, wanting to stay the same and until the very last tick of the second when it is absolutely necessary to move on.

premiered by flute, Cathy Cho    bassoon, Marat Khusaenov    violin, Yen-Ping Lai   
double bass,  Brian Marrow

also performed by flute, Tim Hagen    bassoon, Ashley Maydwell    violin, Matthew Borba    double bass,  Brian Marrow

Insomnia (2004)  This trio reveals my frequent painful experiences staying up all night alone to finish my endless assignments.  The cello carries a ground bass which uses all 12 chromatic tones.  The piano is an isorhythmic chaconne with tri-chords derived from the ground.  The violin hovers above the cello and piano, and represents the isolation of the dark. 

premiered by violin, Yen-Ping Lai    cello, Joy A. Payton-Stevens    piano, Shane Summers

 also performed by violin, Matthew Borba    cello, Mia Barcia-Colomba    piano, Leila Vaziri

Conversation (2003)  This brass trio portrays an everyday-life encounter – conversation.  After a brief introduction, two loud and talkative participants, trumpets start a competitive discussion.  Their dialogue is slowly infiltrated by a third, the trombone, who has a contrasting opinion.  The trumpets ignore the trombone at first and let the trombone hover in the low register with a mute.  The trombone tries again and finally manages to get their attention, and is given the opportunity to express his opinion.  The trumpets still doubt the trombone’s credibility and play skeptically with mutes.  However, they soon find the trombone very inspiring and let the trombone join them.

premiered by trumpet, Jeffrey Thomson, Edward Kusell-Zigelman    trombone, Vikram Devasthali

also performed by trumpet, Peter Adam, Rachel Francis    trombone, Vikram Devasthali

Zet Sou (2003)  Zet Sou, prime number in Cantonese, is based on a hexachord generated by mapping prime numbers to the violin, starting from the lowest G string.  At the macro level, prime numbers are mapped to bar numbers.  Prime bar numbers signify important musical events, such as changes to different transpositions and inversions of the original hexachord, and beginnings of sections.  This violin solo describes how mathematicians approach the Riemann Hypothesis, and attempts to show the listener the underlying order and magic of primes.

premiered by  violin, Sakura Tsai

second performance by violin, Sakura Tsai !

EXPERIMENTAL PIECES

a5 (2004-05)  Traditionally à2 is an indication used for woodwind players to play in unison, thereby adding color and volume to a tone.  The title à5 is an expansion of this idea where five instruments work together to express an idea.  à5 is a mixed quintet for oboe, viola, horn, tuba and marimba that explores timbral chords, pitted against rhythmic and sometimes hocket-like sections.  The extensively featured repeated notes are a breakdown equivalent of the sustained notes.  At first, the repeated and sustained notes appear in different gestures, but they eventually meet and realize they are one.

1-minute version premiered by Oboe, Maya Barrera    Viola, Jerome Gordon   
Horn, Tim McFadden    Tuba, Laura Potter    Marimba, Erik Ohlson   

7-minute version premiered by Oboe, Kimberly Lamb    Viola, Nicholaus Yee    Horn, ??
Tuba, Laura Potter    Marimba, Erik Ohlson    Conductor, Joshua Roach

also performed by Oboe, Kimberly Lamb    Viola, Whittney Thomas    Horn, Tawnee Lillo   
Tuba, Laura Potter    Marimba, Erik Ohlson    Conductor, Henry Shin

Turbulence (2006)  This piece is constructed through the processes involved in turbulence – the abrupt changes caused by turbulence, the propagation of the after-effects as waves, echoes, and their interference. 
Musically, these processes are presented as the abrupt changes of gestures, wave-like motions in terms of dynamics, pitch, and the interplay between the participating instruments.  The echoes take the form of idiomatic imitation, while interference manifests itself as is the constructive and deconstructive imitation. 
This piece is an experimental attempt to explore improvisation in composition.  Contrasting gestures are manipulated to signal among the improvisers to transition to the next section.

premiered by Improvisers on Alto Saxophone, John Glover    Tenor Saxophone, Bobbie Jameson   
Accordion, Isaac Schankler     Double bass,  Gabe Noel

FILM SCORINGS

"She May Try" (2005): a full-length feature film
directed by Joshua Lim

"Hair-cut" (2003): an 8-minute master independent study film at Chapman University
directed by Yoonjae Chung

"Mangbusuk" (2002): a 15-minute master independent study film at Chapman University
directed by Seungtae Kwon