Pacific Symphony composer-in-residence Viet Cuong builds on lessons, relationships
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Before Viet Cuong took a seat on the floor to listen to the Pacific Symphony rehearsal on Wednesday night, more than one reporter asked him to recall his time working with the orchestra.
While his music has taken him many places, a constant in his love for music has been the relationships, Cuong said. That was true when he was a clarinet player and a percussionist attending high school in Georgia.
Cuong, a Lake Forest resident, is now in his third year as the composer-in-residence for the Pacific Symphony, which calls the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa its home.
The time spent working with the orchestra has been “special,” said Cuong, who added that he feels like he is “writing for people.” That feeling of connectivity and trust extends to his relationship with Carl St.Clair, the longtime conductor of the Pacific Symphony.
“I feel like I’m in a safe space,” Cuong said of collaborating with St.Clair. “I know that the music will be taken care of well.”
St.Clair, a Laguna Beach resident, is in his final season as music director, a role he has held for 35 years. He will stay connected to the symphony as music director laureate. (Alexander Shelley was named as St.Clair’s successor in November.)
That relationship began when Cuong heard that his music was going to be played at USC during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s when he met St.Clair, who was guest conducting a concert with the USC Thornton School of Music’s wind ensemble.
“Everything was being canceled all the time, and I hadn’t heard a piece of mine played in months,” Cuong said. “I reached out to USC, and I was like, ‘Would you allow me to come on campus, so I could hear this piece played? … [St.Clair] was so excited that I was there, and I got to talk to him a little bit. I think I was one of three people in the audience for that concert because it was a livestream concert.”
Pacific Symphony picked up a fifth piece from Cuong, “Marine Layer,” for a world premiere during its performances this weekend.
“I think it’s really hard to do anything that’s truly one of a kind or never been done before,” Cuong said. “There’s so many composers who have tried so many things, so many chords, so many melodies, so many different orchestrations. For me, things stay exciting when I feel like I’ve figured something out for myself that I probably wouldn’t have thought of a year ago, or even yesterday.
“Whenever I’m writing a piece, whenever I get that feeling, the piece feels like it starts to write itself when I have that excitement.”
Cuong, 34, got his start in music when his mother put him in piano lessons as a young boy.
“I always joke that I took it too seriously, like I got too interested in it,” said Cuong, who noted that he was encouraged to pursue fields with more stability as the son of Vietnamese immigrants.
By his senior year of high school, classmates were playing pieces he wrote, and he was beginning to win support at home, albeit with a healthy bit of skepticism.
“I think that their apprehension made me work even harder because I always thought to myself, ‘Well, they took a big leap of faith, and I want them to see that it was worth it,’” Cuong said.
Cuong attended the Peabody Conservatory, before enrolling in graduate studies at Princeton University and the Curtis Institute of Music.
“I feel grateful for all my teachers I’ve had,” said Cuong. “There’s a composer here based in Southern California named Frank Ticheli, who was the composer-in-residence for the Pacific Symphony [from 1991 to 1998]. … I played a lot of his music when I was in high school, and he still is writing really amazing music and still has a really wonderful career as a composer.
“He has always been really kind to me, and he even guest conducted a group in Korea, a piece of mine, this past summer. I think if you had told me when I was 14 that one day Frank Ticheli would be a fan of mine and conducting my music, I would have freaked out.”
Cuong now splits his time between Orange County and Las Vegas, where he is an assistant professor of music composition at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“Students today have the same insecurities and dreams and ambitions as when I was a student,” he said. “I think my role as a teacher is to use all the knowledge that I’ve gained over the years, and all the lessons I’ve learned, and have those lessons be in service of someone other than myself. It’s really rewarding in that way.”
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