Pianist Conor Hanick performs from the Hudson Valley.

Composer Vivian Fung created this Spotify playlist, including Violin Concerto from our studio album, Dreamscapes, performed by violinist Kristin Lee.

It may seem surprising to hear that Vivian Fung, born and raised in Edmonton, has built an international reputation as a classical music composer that has led her to a commissioned orchestral work for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as a way of introducing its 2015 season in September. But there it is. Fung knows no bounds, nor does her compositional groove.

Dreamscapes is magnificent with virtuosic performances… a spectacular sounding disc… by one of today’s most eclectic composers.

The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) announced today that Edmonton-born composer Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto is the winner of the 2013 Juno Award for “Classical Composition of the Year.”

The two concertos were recorded at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall by Charlie Post and Tim Martyn with a “you-are-there” feeling.

The opening Violin Concerto is a good introduction to Fung, offering an immediate vista of her understated but brilliant orchestration and her technically demanding but musically riveting writing for the violin.

This, easily, one of the most unusual piano concertos you will ever hear but, I think, the strongest work in this collection and completely fascinating. The fact that she is, clearly, a very creative and skilled composer is all I need to recommend this without hesitation.

Vivian Fung’s Dreamscapes is a cutting-edge album in the best sense, an invigorating indication of where we are in classical music.

Exciting, skilfully put together music with many exoticisms.

“What sets Fung apart is her ability to take over the subconscious of the listener, to build a world so captivating that even the strangest of transitions happen seamlessly. “

“The year-old Violin Concerto that leads off the disc boasts a certain winsome charm, especially in the fluid performance of soloist Kristin Lee.”

At every point in the disc, Fung has a strong sense of thematic control and structural overview that suggests more great things to come.

Here at last is music of dramatic urgency and depth, in which Fung draws on ideas from gamelan while also adding plenty of her own original material - clangorous, dissonant harmonies, off-kilter rhythms and a sense of wild unpredictability.

All three of the works presented here are based on gamelan motifs and melodies giving the disc a wonderful continuity.