Friday, July 22nd 8:30pm at Crashbox (2022)
WANG Ziyu is a composer currently residing in Phoenix, Arizona. She was born in Tianjin, China. She is interested in transcultural influences in music, musical metaphors, and portrait doodling, and her works have been performed at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival (Knoxville, TN), and the SPLICE Festival (Kalamazoo, MI), as well as in Italy and China. Her works feature acoustic instruments and ensembles, as well as electronics and multimedia. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Music Composition at Arizona State University, and she teaches music theory and composition. Before studying composition, she completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and was a Formula Student racer.
In this multi-media presentation of compositions and visual art by Ziyu, she will be joined by James Tabata performing her piece ‘A Monkey Reaching for the Moon’ (2021)
James Tabata is a composer-songwriter and the founder of Less Than <10 Music. James’ music is characterized by sensitivity to evolving tone color, developing expressive motivic lines, and interdisciplinary collaboration. With the subject matter of his music often reflecting on attacks on heritage, race, and sexual orientation, James writes primarily to inspire empathy and hope through means of intimate, engaging sound worlds and visceral poetry. James’ music has been performed in Alice Tully Hall in New York, Italy, Toronto, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. James has received honors from the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards and was a featured artists for The Church of the Friendly Ghost in their 2019-2020 artists series based in Austin, TX.