About Me

I’m a pianist, composer, and music scholar. I am interested in textual and material modes of musical transmission (notation, archival media, keyboard instruments), and experiential aspects of musical performance (rhythm, embodiment, social/political aspects of musical time). I train these principal focuses on such particular topics as piano music since 1900, musical modernism within and outside of the West, domestic music-making following the rise of the middle class, and socially hermetic music.

I’m drawn especially to what has been called “highly notated” music (for instance, the music of Milton Babbitt), as well as underrepresented repertoires demanding unconventional approaches to textual interpretation. I maintain an interest in new music as well, often playing music by living composers, and taking special joy in collaborating with friends. My work with notation also includes transcription and critical edition that may facilitate performances and analysis anew. Some of my editorial work has appeared in publication, and indeed brought forth new performances.

Recent and upcoming projects include my doctoral dissertation on the music and life of Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru, transcriptions of piano music by Diamanda Galás, a new realization of Maryanne Amacher’s “Petra” with Jack Yarbrough, an album of piano music by Eve Beglarian, a new piano work by Alison Yun-fei Jiang, the premiere of an evening-length work by Tui St. George Tucker, and an undergraduate history course about the piano as (especially post-colonial) nation-building venue.

Most of my recent compositions were written for myself to play. As like my performance and research activities, many of them are concerned with thinking through the music of others, through quotation or deconstruction. Often introspective in character, my music tends toward a concentration of expression; through “experimental” means I write from a place of warmth, wit, and charm.

Outside of music, my pastimes include practicing American Sign Language, foraging, and fermenting. I’m also a proud, doting cat parent.

A “professional” bio is available here, as is a CV.

My surname, “Feng” (冯 féng), correctly pronounced, rhymes with “sung”, not “sang”.