Composer

“Audacious, compelling and hugely imaginative.”

Leo Stutzin, Huffington Post

Sometimes a song can mean freedom or death. I create musical events to hold tension between these extremes. My songs of dislocation honor the challenges and rituals of people who gather to listen.

Byron Au Yong
Biography | CV

Check out a few of my projects...

Activist Songbook

53 raps and songs to counteract hate and energize movements performed at Asian Arts Initiative, The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and Montalvo Arts Center

The Ones, a.k.a. Trigger, a.k.a. (Be)longing

photo from (Be)longing at Virginia Tech Center for the Arts

a music theater forum about coming of age in an age of guns performed at the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, MDC Live Arts, and NYU

Stuck Elevator

a comic-rap-scrap-metal-opera about a trapped man performed at American Conservatory Theater, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and Hopkins Center for the Arts

Mò Shēng 墨声 Ink Sound

a string quartet calligraphy installation performed at the Frye Art Museum

Turbine

for 80+ moving voices along the water performed by the Leah Stein Dance Company and Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia for the 200th anniversary of the Fairmount Water Works

Piano Concerto–Houston

an interview installation for 11 pianists and one piano presented at the CounterCurrent Festival of the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts