Chapman University’s College of Performing Arts announced that Chinary Ung, DMA will speak at the school’s 2016 Commencement on Saturday, May 21 in Musco Center for the Arts.

Ung serves as Senior Composer in Residence in the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music, and has had many associations with Chapman over the years, including a long collaboration with Sean Heim, PhD, Associate Professor of Music Composition. The two have collaborated on many festivals, concerts, and tours over the years. Ung’s daughter Sonika graduated from Chapman with a degree in psychology in 2011.

ung-chinaryBorn in Cambodia in 1942, Ung has lived and worked in the United States since 1964 when he arrived in New York City – speaking virtually no English – to study clarinet at the Manhattan School of Music. His compositions are known for drawing together the seemingly disparate sounds and attitudes of contemporary concert music and Southeast Asian traditional music.

Ung received his DMA from Columbia University, where his principal mentor was Chou Wen-Chung. His work has been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Asian Cultural Council, the Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program, Mutable Music, and the Ford, Rockefeller, Koussevitzky, Joyce, Jebediah, and Barlow Foundations. For his work Inner Voices, he was given the Grawemeyer Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in music composition. Most recently the Asian Cultural Council named Ung recipient of the John D. Rockefeller Award for 2014.

Ung’s music is featured on numerous recordings released on Atoll, Naxos, Ein Klang and Bridge Records. His compositions are published exclusively by C.F. Peters Corporation and they are registered under BMI. Ung is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego.