About

b.1970, USA

Dorothy Chang’s music is characterized by an emphasis on dramatic intensity and expressive lyricism, with a more recent interest in interdisciplinary works involving video, imagery and movement. 

Born in Winfield, Illinois, Dorothy has received degrees in composition from the University of Michigan (B.M., M.M.) and the Indiana University School of Music (D.M). Chang’s music has been performed by orchestras and featured in concerts and festivals across North America and abroad, most recently at the PAN Music Festival (Seoul), Lontano Festival (UK), and World Music Days in Hong Kong.

For the 2003-04 and 2005-08 seasons, Dorothy held a Music Alive composer residency with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. In 2008 she was awarded the inaugural commission from the Women's Philharmonic Commissioning Project of Meet the Composer for a new orchestral work, Strange Air, which was premiered at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music by Marin Alsop and the Festival Orchestra.

Dorothy has served on the music faculty at Indiana State University and is presently Associate Professor of Music at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Watch an interview with Dorothy Chang discussing her new Soundstreams commission, Small and Curious Places.

Artist Compositions

 

Premiere Title of Commission Listen
05/14/2013 Small and Curious Places Listen Close

Small and Curious Places, puts aside the question of East vs. West and instead approaches the ensemble as a group of individual instruments and their unique characteristics, with none more distinct or exotic than the others.

01/25/2011 Lost and Found Listen Close

Lost and Found represents Chang’s embrace of a musical heritage that had hitherto exerted little influence on her compositions, and her exploration of how that heritage might intersect with her own musical voice. Each of the work’s five short movements takes its own approach to integrating the Chinese and Western traditions.