<\/p>\n
Dr. Stella Sung helps a third grader during UCF CREATE’s weaving and dyeing summer camp in 2018. In collaboration with the\u00a0Academic Center for Excellence and\u00a0the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida, CREATE visited elementary students and taught them how to weave, tie-dye shirts and paint using pastels and watercolors.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of UCF CREATE<\/p>\n
In the 1970s, a\u00a0young girl sat amid the rumble of percussion and the smooth timbre of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra\u2019s strings, unaware of the seasoned composer she would become.<\/p>\n
Those concerts helped launch Dr. Stella Sung’s love affair with music and composition.<\/p>\n
Sung began studying piano at 8 years old, leading her to pursue degrees in piano performance and composition. After receiving her doctorate and completing a six-month study period in France with a musical mentor, Sung joined UCF as a full-time professor teaching music theory, composition, piano and voice.<\/p>\n
Sung serves as the director of the UCF Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology and Entertainment, also known as CREATE. Sung is also a faculty adviser for animation students in the UCF School of Visual Arts and Design, guiding them as they compose soundtracks for their student films.<\/p>\n
What drew Sung to UCF was the freedom and opportunity it offered as a smaller institution back in the late ’80s, she said. She was able to continue exploring new projects and ideas \u2014 a philosophy she still embraces today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can do different things and maybe use different talents that I didn’t even know I had,\u201d Sung said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sung has long been drawn to pairing music with visual media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually they separate arts and sciences,\u201d Sung said. \u201cBut now, with technology, a lot of it is coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n
JoAnne Adams, supervising faculty adviser for UCF\u00a0SVAD, oversees animation students as they create films for their senior projects. Dr. Sung works with and advises young composers to score those films, working closely with Adams.<\/p>\n
Adams said that audio is used as a storytelling device, you cannot have a film without music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe music is supposed to support the meaning of the story and the shot,\u201d Adams said. \u201cAll our artistic expression is meant to communicate a feeling, an emotion and a thought process.\u201d<\/p>\n
While working with the animation department, Sung was invited to collaborate as the composer for the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance in Ohio. The alliance had received a “Music aLIVE” grant and was developing an animated short film.<\/p>\n
First graders in Dayton were asked to submit story ideas. From the first graders’ submissions, UCF animation students created \u201cFarmer Glorp,<\/a>\u201d a short film about an alien flower farmer whose crops are disrupted by a small alien creature. Sung scored the film.<\/p>\n When the project was complete, everyone involved was invited to a live screening, where an orchestra performed the soundtrack over the animated film.<\/p>\n In a vast auditorium, with over a thousand children at the same age she was when she first fell in love with music, Sung watched a live orchestra bring the children’s story to life \u2014 just as the Jacksonville Symphony had once brought her own dreams to life.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was wonderful,\u201d Sung said. \u201cThe students got a chance to take a bow on stage, to be acknowledged for their work as filmmakers. It was really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n