FLOATING SOUND GALLERY

Vienna

Jen Yu Fang

The core theme of my music is the embodied experience of nature. I focus on the healing power I experience within natural environments and explore how to translate and interpret these forces through music.
My artistic foundation is diverse. Although I was trained in classical music from a young age, I chose to major in Film in college, where I created both experimental and documentary short films. My perspective on music was deeply shaped by two distinct paths of cinematic thinking. The first is a reflection on the materiality of the medium, much like how experimental film manipulates light and shadow through the physical properties of film. The second is the social impact of art, particularly the way documentary filmmaking challenges objectivity and reshapes human perception.
To further seek my inner voice, I entered the Graduate Institute of Music at the Taipei National University of the Arts, majoring in Composition. There, I began to synthesize my previous reflections on film and philosophy into the development of new musical methodologies.
My work is significantly influenced by Musique Concrète and Minimalism. I am fascinated by the way Musique Concrète reimagines non-instrumental sounds through editing and temporal manipulation, which has inspired my own approach to sound development. Similarly, I value the slow yet powerful auditory impact of Minimalist gradualism; I believe such auditory experiences can induce a profound shift in one’s state of perception.
My previous major work was a symphony titled The Planet Generator, which was premiered in 2025 by the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. This piece originated from a month-long experience living with a Taiwanese Indigenous tribe. Through the time spent in the high mountains, I became deeply aware of the spacious experience of the body when one stands at such a high altitude. Starting with two simple motifs, the piece undergoes rapid timbral evolution to depict the raw energy of a mountain range—suggesting that a tiny seed can eventually give birth to an entire planet.
I used the experience gained from instrumental writing in the 2025 IRCAM Ambisonic Workshop to create an ambisonic piece. In this program, I created the ambisonic version of The River of Life, extending my exploration of spatial experience from my previous orchestral work into the realm of spatialized electronic music. Through various spatialization and timbral experiments, I continued my exploration of the theme of nature, “re-musicalizing” environmental recordings and using prepared instrumental sounds to mimic and expand the sound with different timbres.
My music expresses my concerns for the natural environment, Zen philosophy, and an Eastern humanistic perspective. Through my work, I hope to offer these perspectives to a global audience, inviting listeners to engage with these themes through a different lens of sound and spirit.