Sam Wu's music deals with the beauty in blurred boundaries.
Selected for the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot readings, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Washington International Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Prize.
Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Shanghai, the New York City Ballet, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Case Scaglione, and Benjamin Northey, and shēng virtuoso Wu Wei.
From Melbourne, Australia, Sam Wu holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Rice. This fall, he joins the faculty at Whitman College as Visiting Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition. Sam's teachers include Tan Dun, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.
@@SamWuMusic hadn't heard the dutilleaux, thanks for the rec. this one is a little dainty for my taste but i enjoyed it! can certainly imagine being in an airplane while hearing this
ive just discovered your music and I can say I'm instantly hooked, I adore the colors you use in your music, I can't stop listening. I'm glad I discovered you, will definetely add some of your pieces into my repertoire.
Thank you for listening! These are good questions--some of my biggest inspirations are Ravel, Sibelius, John Adams, Tan Dun, and Qigang Chen. I'm not sure as much about stylistic categories, but perhaps an intersection of neo-impressionism, as you mentioned, and post-minimalism?
all of your work is so evocative and atmospheric but this is something else entirely. as an aspiring composer i want you to know that you’re my biggest inspiration right now. cheers from houston!
This is very funny, but I almost left basically this exact comment on your last composition video, but I'm also a fledgling composer in Houston. Thank you for the constant source of inspiring works!
Delicate, serene and very evocative! Thank you so much for sharing, it’s very inspiring stuff :) I’ve recently been going through your channel and I’m so glad I found your music, it really resonates with me! Any chance you’re planning on putting your music on any major streaming services?
Thank you for your kind words and for listening!! Currently I have no plans, but I’ll look into Spotify or Bandcamp! I’m also waiting for the release of a few albums including my music-I can let you know when that happens 👍🏼
@@SamWuMusic ohhh that’s awesome! Looking forward to that then! Btw what musical inspiration did you have for this kind of 2 part solo violin writing. Might be a me thing but I don’t think I’ve really heard this kind of texture + melody thing even though it makes a lot of sense…I really dig it in any case
My primary instrument was the violin as a kid, and I remember enjoying how contrapuntal Bach's solo violin writing is (although quite challenging to play--some awkward fingering and stretches). In general, particularly in solo works, I love exploring ways to suggest / "pretend" there are more than one instrument playing. The middle section of Mendelssohn's violin concerto 2nd movement also features a similar two-voice texture; I was probably thinking about that movement as well when I composed Waterways. Here's a timestamped link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tT1qhGP1qSs.htmlsi=fMqua2pkWSFSbLF3&t=971 (starting at 16:11).
Thank you for listening Curtis!! Honestly, if I were to write it today, I’d think hard about where I truly need time signature changes, and where I can leave more freedom (perhaps through fermatas) 🤔
@@SamWuMusic I can certainly understand that, but I would say that as I was counting along (or trying to) I found the off balance feeling a bit like traffic perhaps? Maybe there’s something there!
@@CurtisSchweitzer I can confirm the whole reason I’m fascinated by highway interchanges is because, as a kid growing up in Shanghai, I’ve spent my fair share of time being stuck in traffic on interchanges 😅
Wow. It isnt often that I am left speechless by music. I'm an organist, used to floating soundscapes in cathedrals and such... But man. I am struggling to find something intelligent and musical to say about what I just heard... But I can't. All I can say is, you left me speechless, floating, and with a huge knot in my chest. Extremely conflicting emotions. Thank you so, so much for that. Please keep sharing your incredible work with us. I think I would like to play this one day. I'd need to be in the right headspace though! Bravissimo.
@@SamWuMusic Absolutely. It reminded me of bar 300ish of Michael Tippets piano sonata 2. That satisfying moment where the form of the piece clicks into place. Ended up showing my partner your piece, her favourite part was the Garden City theme!
I'll check out the Tippett, thank you! I'm glad she likes Garden City! I thought of it as a way to put all three "forests" together, except "forest I" forms the hanging bass pitches in this last iteration.
Hey, this just popped up in my recommended videos. We were bunkmates (cabin-mates?) at Interlochen one Summer! Glad to see that you're still going strong. Lush and evocative composition you've got here. Hope all is well!
Such a delicate and intricate music, tasteful, apart, sensitive, humane, organic, to the end more and more energetic and electrifying. I love it a lot!
This is so good! I like the Baroque melody infused with contemporary musical features, like chords with added notes, shifting time signatures and the dreamlike atmosphere. I particularly liked how the melody at the end was voiced 2 octaves apart which was unexpected but certainly imitated two woodwind instruments very well. The pianist was really great too! :)
Thank you for listening Isaac! The pianist Thomas and I did have a discussion on which registers to have the octave doublings, and at how many octaves apart. I feel the magic color is usually 2 octaves apart :)
Sam, I remember appreciating the premiere of this piece at the 2022 Bowdoin and enjoying it a lot. It recalls the memories back then :) So glad that many people love your music!!
Hey there, what a wonderful atmospheric and colorful composition, full of piece and quiety, very soothing and soul-caressing! Nice to get to know your music!
