Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Lucy Chen and Isabelle Tseng

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 184: Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Lucy Chen and Isabelle Tseng

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Today we revisit Lucy Chen’s and Isabelle Tseng’s perspectives on what being a composer means to them. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Lucy Chen and Isabelle Tseng, check them out here and here. Parts of this episode originally premiered in January 2025, click here, and February 2025, click here.

This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/18311158

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Christy Xu

Chapters

• 0:29 Today we revisit Lucy Chen's and Isabelle Tseng's perspectives on what being a composer means to them. Here's what Lucy Chen had to say.
• 3:36 Here's what Isabelle Tseng had to say.

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our Da Capo Conversations, a mini series where we'll be giving familiar segments a topical twist. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] Today we revisit Lucy Chen's and Isabelle Tseng's perspectives on what being a composer means to them. Here's what Lucy Chen had to say.

Lucy Chen  00:39

This is a question I thought about a lot, especially when I compose something, and then it comes to life, and I'm just like, wow, like, this entire process was just so special. And I think just the position of being a composer is just like, to me, it's such an exciting person to be, because you can basically bring, like, any story or emotion or a very big concept or even a minute detail, like, oh, this piece is going to be about what two blades of grass sound like when they're next to each other. You can write about anything and make it something beautiful, and I think that is just such a special process, and I'm so grateful that I can kind of tap into this sort of process, and you can just bring all these little things, or like big things to life, like ideas to life, by writing different gestures and different instruments. And it's almost like an artist with a paintbrush. Since I do art too, I think it's a very similar process. And also in terms of, if you're thinking about like tempered notes, like the same 12 notes, you can arrange them in infinite ways, and they can sound like infinitely different and it'll all be very beautiful. So what draws me to composing is, first of all that, and also just being able to write about my own voice and like my own experiences, whether that's just like me being with my friends or something that emotionally impacted me, or my cultural experiences with my family, and just making a window through music to allow other people to feel how I feel about something. I think one of my most like special musical experiences was when I wrote this orchestra piece for my high school org youth orchestra. And it was about, it was, like, adapted from, like, a Chinese folk story. And I'm Chinese, just to clarify, but, but, yeah. And then I kind of added in my own experiences in China, and I melded all these feelings together. And also it was my senior year, so this was my last performance with this youth orchestra that I've been in for like five years, and all of that came together in this piece, and then when I rehearsed it with the orchestra and with the conductor, that I also had gotten really close to the final performance was just so, like, emotional, and it was so great being able to play with everyone, because I got to play piano there too. So it was very cool, because the piano is in the middle of the orchestra, so you get to hear everyone around you, and you're like, wow, like this feeling is right now, like it's being shared by everyone. Everyone's playing together. We all know it's the last concert. And I think just experiences like that, it makes me remember how much I love composing and just how real of an emotional experience it can bring to everyone.

Nanette McGuinness  03:36

Here's what Isabelle Tseng had to say.

Isabelle Tseng  03:39

I think in a way, being a composer is a little bit more like finding exactly what Okay. In one way, I think it's like a form of self expression, and it's kind of like, What do I like? Let's say I have a piece about, like, a certain like walk in the woods I once had then I feel like it's about my story at that time, and kind of how I want to convey that. And I feel like that, although that sounds like simple a lot of times I'm sitting in front of the computer going, like, these are just notes. Like, these are just notes somebody arbitrarily plays, and at some point, did you come together to make a mood? And I feel like it's kind of a slow exploration to kind of my own musical language. So how do I make this sound uniquely because, yeah, sometimes we hear like a movie, and then maybe we have an impression of what like a shark attack should sound like.

Nanette McGuinness  04:40

Yeah, yeah, that will never be the same since Jaws, you're right, yeah.

Isabelle Tseng  04:44

But like, honestly, I feel each composer has their own musical language in a certain way, like I was really inspired by, like, George Crumb at some point. I really, really loved George Crumb, and I feel like hearing his music like the colors are. Like, strong, very, very strong. Yeah, they're vivid, yeah, yeah, very vivid. And I think, like that is something I aspire to do. So composition for me has largely been at the moment, like, kind of finding my musical language, one and two, finding what I want to express with my music, and effectively like utilizing them music.

Nanette McGuinness  05:24

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure's Da Capo Conversations, and a special thank you to our guests for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to Co-producer and Audio Engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]