Bio

Hailed as “inventive and breathtaking” by the New York Times, Fang Man is a Chinese-born American composer. Her music has been performed worldwide by notable orchestras and ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra New Music Group under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Camerata Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mannheimer Philharmoniker, Basel Sinfonietta, American Composers Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, National Orchestre de Lorraine, Minnesota Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Aldeburgh Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Baldwin-Wallace Symphony Orchestra, USC Wind Ensemble, Prism Saxophone Quartet, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Ensemble UnitedBerlin, Cassatt String Quartet, Music from China, among others. In 2019-20, she is featured as the composer-in-residence with the Mannheimer Philharmoniker under Boian Videnoff in Germany for their 2019-20 season to celebrate the orchestra's 10th Anniversary, which includes performances and recordings of her orchestral works. Her newest commission from the San Francisco Symphony and League of American Orchestras funded by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, will be a large-scale Sheng (Chinese mouth organ) concerto to be premiered by Sheng virtuoso Wu Wei and conducted by SFSO's new director Esa-Pekka Salonen in the 2021-2022 season.

She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Koussevitzky Foundation Commission, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Association Commission, an Underwood/ACO Commission, Toru Takemitsu Award (Japan), Opera America Discovery Grant, the National Endowment for the Arts Award, Siemens Berlin Music Foundation Commission, NewMusicUSA Commission, the 47th UWRF Commissioned Composer, Dolce Suono Ensemble Mahler-Schoenberg Project Commission, Prism Saxophone Quartet /Music From China Commission, USC Provost Grant, Bank of America Gallery Commission, the Darmstadt Stipend-Prize-Award, SACEM Scholarship (France), SC Arts Fellowship, Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship, Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship, Music from China Award, among others.

Her music has been heard at the Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Merkin Concert Hall, Miller Theater (New York); Walt Disney Hall (Los Angeles); Espace de Projection of IRCAM-Centre Pompidou (Paris), Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall (Japan), Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia), Friedberg Concert Hall (Baltimore), Bank of America Tower (Seattle), Beijing Concert Hall (China), etc. She has been invited to new music festivals such as the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Centre Acanthes (France); Darmstadt New Music Festival, Festival Blurred Edges, Global Ear Festival, Sinus~Ton Festival (Germany); Gaudeamus Music Week (the Netherlands); Cabrillo Festival, Aspen Music Festival, June in Buffalo, and Bowdoin Summer Music Festival (USA), among others. She was invited as a resident composer at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida, Aldeburgh Music Centre (UK), and Civitella Ranieri Music Foundation (Italy). Besides the digital album with the American Composers Orchesta released in 2012, another album with the Prism Saxophone Quartet and Music From China Ensemble was released in March 2014.

Fang's primary teachers include Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra at Cornell Univ., where she obtained the Master of Fine Arts degree and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. She was chosen to participate in the one-year Computer Music and Composition courses at IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, where she studied composition with Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Yan Marez, and Tristan Murail. She also studied with Richard Toensing and Michael Theodore at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Before she moved to the United States, she obtained the Bachelor of Music degree from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied with Du Ming-Xin and Ye Xiao-Gang.
 
Fang Man is currently an Associate Professor of Composition at the University of South Carolina. She previously held positions as the Composer-in-Residence/Assistant Professor at the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Duke University. 

Education

Cornell University, Doctor of Musical Arts

IRCAM - Centre Pompidou Paris , Certificate of Composition and Computer Music

Cornell University, Master of Fine Arts

Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, Bachelor of Music

Appointments

University of South Carolina, Associate Professor of Music

Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, Composer-In-Residence/Assistant Professor

Duke University, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music

Research Interests

Opera and Theatre

Computer-Assisted Music Composition and Analysis, Electro-Acoustic Music

Orchestration

Music and Visual Arts, Film Music

Chinese Music and Chinese Instruments

Teaching

MUS 726 the Music of Lutoslawski

MUS 316 and 416: Music Composition

MUS 516, 716 and 816 Individual Composition

SCHC 367/MUSC 726: Chinese Music and Instruments