A Conversation

effect work a little better. That's why all the intervals between the notes in the opening of Vital Sines are sixths or fifths. I could have closed the voicing but it wouldn’t have sounded as interesting. In that case, the voicing is tied to the effect.

Are there other compositional throughlines you have noticed in your music?

Viet Cuong: I would say triadic harmony. It’s something I have always loved. If I ever use seventh chords I'm really judicious about it. There is something about triads I find beautiful and pure in a certain way. I think maybe in a couple years I'll graduate to using seventh chords. Maybe by the time I'm old I’ll be up to eleventh chords and just stop there. (laughs) The opening of Sound and Smoke is overlapping triads. Vital Sines also uses triads but one note changes at a time to create suspensions and chords move down by step one note at a time. There are probably other throughlines as well—for example, I've always loved the use of metallic percussion—but I would say triadic harmony is probably one of the biggest.

Viet Cuong: Similar to the way my compositional voice has become more focused over the years, the way I write for percussion has become more focused as well. In terms of writing for percussion instruments, I always try to get as much as I can out of a select group of instruments that I choose to use in a piece. In a piece like Sound and Smoke I think there is a moment where I used sleigh bells shaken for six measure, or something like that, and I don't use them again. (laughs) It’s sort of this youthful discretion in thinking, “there's so many great percussion instruments. I love this sound of rolled triangle with sleigh bells, it's really jangly and really cool”—and it is a cool sound—but now if I were to do that, I would think, “I need to use these sleigh bells again, what can I do with them? What other sounds can I make? What else can I combine them with?” Now if I decide to use crotales, for example, I'm going to divide them up between six people and create different effects with them. That's one way writing for percussion has changed.

like to play. Either that, or I just feel the sound of them is tired and that they've been used so much they are not as interesting to me. An example of this is snare drum. Unless I'm using snare drum in a specific way—such as in Re(new) al where it's part of a drum set, or in Vital Sines where it's literally part of a drum set, or in Sound and Smoke, there's a segment where I wanted a boom-chick sound—I otherwise don't use snare drum. I think part of that is because, how many middle and high school band pieces do we have that use some sort of snare and bass drum motor? That sound is so tired and it automatically makes the piece sound like it’s written for a specific purpose—and I don't like that about it.

Being a percussionist, how have you approached writing for percussion instruments over the course of your career?

In some other ways, it has somewhat stayed the same. I don't know if you’ve noticed, there are certain instruments I don't use a lot for the percussion section. I think this has to do with being a percussionist growing up and there were just instruments I didn't

I also don't use xylophone very much at all. I used it recently in my double oboe concerto, but that's because it sounds great with harpsichord—using xylophone like continuo. Otherwise, I don't really like it because it sticks out too much—and also maybe because in the marching band front ensemble I was always the xylophone player. (laughs) What I love about marimba and vibraphone is that, on some level, they are neutral instruments and, almost like piano, they can blend really well with other things—so when you hear a marimba and vibraphone, you don’t think, “that's a marimba and vibraphone.” They create beautiful timbres that come out of the instrument. I'm also really interested in reverb, delay, and really wet acoustics in my music—xylophone is the antithesis of that. It’s meant to be really brittle sounding and just doesn't fit in my music. I would say usually when I use xylophone a lot I regret it. There are moments, however, where I use xylophone because I want it to articulate and accent what the marimba and piano are doing.

There is a great deal of motion in your music. Is this related to your choice of meter and how you employ time signatures to generate velocity?

Viet Cuong: In the first movement of Sound and Smoke, I gave the half note the beat because I wanted it to feel like the music of Palestrina and other Renaissance vocal music that is usually written in the same fashion. When we see half notes and a lot of empty note heads, I think there's something psychological that leads us to sing or play longer. Even though the same music could be written with the quarter or eighth note as the beat, I think we would approach it differently because we see more stems and beams and it just looks faster—even when it isn't. I’ve noticed Bach did this in an opposite way as he writes solo violin music that’s really slow, but he uses all these thirty-second notes. It doesn’t actually sound like that if you were to transcribe it without looking at the music—but I think he psychologically wanted something that had a sense of urgency—even though it wasn't necessarily fast. In Bull’s-Eye, I want that sense of urgency a lot of the time. I remember thinking that I could notate it in eighth notes, and it might be easier to read, but it wouldn't have that lightness about it. I've done this in other pieces too. I have a chamber piece that I’ve withdrawn titled Nothing If Not and sixteenth notes run throughout most of the piece. I made a full orchestra prototype of that piece and wrote eighth notes instead— the ensemble never played it as fast as Nothing If Not. No one ever plays it that fast because they see eighth notes and don’t play as quickly. That's one aspect of generating motion—choosing the mensuration of the meter.

Meter changes are another interesting aspect I've been exploring. In Vital Sines, there's a section that uses constant meter changes, but those meters are what the music is—going between dotted eighths to eighths—so I notated it that way. Then there's a point where the drums come in and I take the same music but write it in 4/4. Doing that creates cross rhythms and a groove which is a fun thing to do. I know someone could look at that music with all those meter changes and think, “why don’t you just put it in 4/4?”— well, turn a couple pages and that's what happens. Trying to write it both ways is kind of fun. That was a big moment when I realized that I can just erase all the meter changes and put a steady groove on top, with the drum set playing a very straightforward 4/4 beat— that was a cool discovery with that piece. But generally, I like for meters to be very straightforward. I only do meter changes when they are necessary—or when I feel as though it adds something to the music that would be missing if it wasn't there. I don't write meter changes just to make the music hard. If someone commissions a grade six piece, it might remain in 4/4 throughout the entire work. I don't think of grade six as a formulaic concept that must have specific meter changes and metric modulations, etc. All the notation serves to express exactly and most clearly what I'm trying to do.

It is interesting in Bull’s-Eye that, without changing the tempo, the overall feel of the music changes, thus drawing attention to the orchestration.4 Is that technique used often in your music or are there other approaches used to focus the listener’s attention to certain aspects of the music?

Viet Cuong: In Bull’s-Eye that was something specific to that piece, in terms of using metric changes to draw the listener’s attention, but I will thin out the score all the time and orchestrationally draw the listener’s attention to other things— similar to working in a digital audio workstation, like Logic or Pro Tools, where you can mute and unmute voices—sometimes I'll do that to the orchestration. I will write an entire, fully orchestrated idea, and then decide that it's too thick and dense for too long and begin to “poke holes” and thin things out—which is a fun thing to do because it's almost like being a DJ remixing your own music.

What can you share about the inception of one of your earliest pieces for band, Sound and Smoke?

Viet Cuong: Sound and Smoke actually began as an orchestra piece—it was a piece I was working on my junior year of college. At some point I abandoned the piece and then at the end of that year, Harlan Parker, conductor of the Wind Ensemble, asked if I wanted to write a band piece for the Peabody Wind Ensemble. I had previously written a piece my freshman year of college, which I have since withdrawn, that the Wind Ensemble premiered my sophomore year and it went well. After being given the opportunity to write another piece I thought,

“there's all this music I abandoned that I wrote this past year. It would be a shame for it to go to waste.” I remember pulling out the original file and deciding to turn this orchestra piece into a band piece—and that material became the second movement of Sound and Smoke. I hadn't written any of the first movement until I received the offer from Harlan. Although, the first page of the opening to Sound and Smoke is music that I had played on the piano from a time, probably since high school. It was something I had come up with and never used for anything—I had also never written it down—but I had it in my hands and my ears and I eventually decided to notate it. I remember writing it out and thinking, “Wow, this is cool!”

How did you make the decision to have two movements in Sound and Smoke?

Viet Cuong: I really just wanted to write a slow and fast movement. This is another throughline in my music—I don't change tempos very often. Usually the tempo is just set and away it goes. (chuckles) When I do change tempo it's when I change movements—I don't write a lot of accelerando or ritardando. I have ideas to do that more, it just hasn't been something I've done very much. If there is a tempo change the music may go into halftime, so it's not necessarily a change of tempo. That’s not to say that my music doesn’t ever change tempo. For example, in Vital Sines there are tempo changes, but they are very small. The music says something like “slightly faster.” (chuckles) When I say I typically don’t change tempo, I’m saying it's not drastic— suddenly slow or suddenly fast. In Sound and Smoke, I also wanted to break away from the form I had heard my whole life in band music which is fast-slow-fast. The piece I wrote for band my freshman year that I mentioned earlier is called Ziggurat, as in the Mesopotamian structures called ziggurats. That was a fast-slow-fast piece. Writing two movements in Sound and Smoke was almost like giving myself the challenge of, “You’re going to write something that’s seven minutes long, and it’s going to be slow the entire time—and then it’s going to be fast.”

COMPOSER-CONDUCTOR COLLABORATION

The following questions pertain to the composer’s view on the collaboration between the composer and an ensemble conductor, as well as a few closing thoughts.

How do you view the significance of composer-conductor collaboration in projects you have completed and current projects you are working on?

Viet Cuong: It's really important to me because it involves so much mutual trust. The composer trusts the conductor to bring the music to life, and the conductor trusts the composer to have a vision they know how to attain. Though it might be hard to get the music to sound how you want it, the conductor trusts that the composer knows how they want the music to sound and that what they write can achieve that. With every conductor I work with I really value that sense of trust and I think it's good to be involved with one another in the process. Very rarely do I ever just send off a piece—there is some level of back and forth, which is great and I always welcome that.

How do you view the role of the wind band right now in the art music realm? Both in general and specifically for you, what trajectory do you see the wind band on in terms of its place in the music world?

Viet Cuong: I think it's a vitally important medium for composers. First of all, we as composers can take so many risks with wind ensemble music because a lot of conductors are willing to go there with us. There's this renaissance of band music and people are really excited about it—which means conductors are really excited to commission composers, support them, and develop lasting relationships. In a couple of months, I'm going to the University of Oregon for a performance of Vital Sines with Dennis Llinás. He was one of the very first people who performed Sound and Smoke, when I was a complete nobody. It's been amazing to work with conductors who really support your music over the years.

I also think bands have an importance in the music world because there's such a strong sense of community in band. For me, that was really important as a kid— to have that community. I was, of course, so lucky to be in a program like Lassiter. Nevertheless, I talk to people who weren’t in programs like Lassiter and they still have that same experience—where they felt lost as kids, and then they found band. It was something they always looked forward to doing, regardless of whether or not they became professional musicians. In my opinion, that is perhaps one of the most important things that the wind band does.

For my own personal trajectory, I think band is something I'll always write for because it is a place where I feel very at home. Even though I started off as a band kid and took all these different turns—and I still hope to write for all sorts of ensembles—band is something I will continue to come back to, at least every couple of years. As long as you all will have me.

What other composers and ensembles are you interested in and listening to right now?

Viet Cuong: I’ve been listening to a lot of orchestral music recently because I'm writing this big piece for orchestra. I recently listened to Steven Stucky’s Concerto for Orchestra No. 2. I’ve been listening to ambient music, such as Nils Frahm, because I'm wanting to create something like that for this orchestra piece. I think there are hints of ambient music in what I've been doing recently and it’s something I want to explore more. I listened to a piece by Andrew Norman recently called Sustain that's really incredible. I’ve listened to some saxophone quartet music as well. I listened to some of Eighth Blackbird’s albums recently. I also like listening to music that’s by people around my age, maybe a little older, or a little younger, to see what other people are doing. These days everything is so easily accessible through the internet, so it’s easy to stay in tune with what everyone is doing.

What is your hope for ensembles and audiences that experience your music?

Viet Cuong: I just want them to connect with it in some way. I

A Conversation with Viet Cuong, Benjamin Pouncey, cont.

think it's a hard thing to be able to predict how the audience will react to your music because audiences are different every time. The audience at Midwest is going to be extremely different than the audience at a new music concert in Chicago. Ideally, I just want them to connect with it in some way so that maybe they leave humming a melody, or leave having a favorite moment, or just remember something that really resonated with them.

In Vital Sines, I hope there are different things with which different people might connect. There are some moments in the piece that I think of as really special or moments that, if I was an audience member, I would probably walk away remembering. One moment for me is when it all focuses into the clarinet solo in the middle of the piece. I think of it as, after all this big and static energy, along with maybe some turmoil and anguish, it comes down to this moment that is like a ray of light coming through a cloud. I am also really proud of the last four minutes of the piece [Vital Sines], with the chaconne and the big build to the end. I just hope everyone connects with my music. Ideally, maybe it even inspires them in some way.

Selected Bibliography

Blue Dot Collective. “About.” Blue Dot Collective.

Accessed January 14, 2023.

www.bluedotcollective.weebly.com.

Cuong, Viet. “About.” Viet Cuong Music. Accessed September 11, 2022. www.vietcuongmusic.com.

———. “Adaptation as Composition: Flexible Approaches in Renewal.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2022.

———. Interview by author. Microsoft Teams, November 14, 2022.

———. “Naica.” Viet Cuong Music. Accessed September 30, 2022. www.vietcuongmusic.com.

———. Sound and Smoke. Downingtown, PA: Murphy Music Press, 2011.

———. Vital Sines. Downingtown, PA: Murphy Music Press, 2022.

———. “Vital Sines: The Making of a Commission.” Presentation at The Midwest Clinic: An International Band and Orchestra Conference, Chicago, IL, December 20, 2022.

———. “Vital Sines.” Viet Cuong Music. Accessed March 9, 2023. www.vietcuongmusic.com.

Davis, Vanessa A. “A Concept–Based Pedagogy Approach To Selected Unaccompanied Clarinet Repertoire.” DMA diss., University of North Texas, 2018.

Edgerton, Cody. “Conversations with Composers: Engaging, Programming, and Performing Wind Band Works by Composers from Historically Underrepresented Communities.” MM thesis, Western Michigan University, 2021.

Viet Cuong’s Wind Ensemble Version of Re(new)al.” DMA diss., University of California Los Angeles, 2022.

Landsberg, Nils. “Viet Cuong’s Bull’s-Eye: A Conductor’s Analysis.” DMA diss., University of Kansas, 2019.

Leung, Erik Kar Jun, ed. The Horizon Leans Forward. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2021.

Trachsel, Andrew. “Sound and Smoke.” In Teaching Music Through Performance in Band 11, edited by Richard Miles, 802–817. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2018.

Tran, Patricia. “Viet Cuong: Virtuosity Unbound.” MM thesis, California State University—Northridge, 2020.

Kim, Janet Song. “Repurposing Sound: A Conductor’s Guide and a Focused Analysis of