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Chicago-based composer and pianist Shi-An Costello leads a multifaceted musical life that ranges from recitals and private teaching to session work for IMAX Films and IFC Films, along with serving as a student accompanist at DePaul University’s School of Music and a staff accompanist for the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative.
But it was when he began to compose in earnest in 2020 that Costello, 38, who is of Chinese, Taiwanese and Irish descent, was able to more fully able to express his Asian heritage. That was especially true in 2023 when he composed The Orient, a solo piano work that he premiered at the Chicago arts venue Constellation.
The work draws on what has been called the East Asian riff, a stereotypical musical trope used in Western culture to suggest East or Southeast Asian music. It first appeared in a rudimentary form in the mid-19th century and has appeared in myriad musical works since. Recent pop-music examples include “Kung-Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas, “Turning Japanese” by the Vapors and “China Girl” by David Bowie.
Written in five movements without a pause, Shi-An Costello’s The Orient means to both mimic and critique works like Mily Balakirev’s Islamey: Oriental Fantasy (1869), which touches on what Costello calls “fleeting images” of opium trips, hate crimes, transcontinental rail construction and imaginary national anthems.
“Even though the work covers some dark histories,” he said in an email interview, “I wanted the work to sound as beautiful as possible. Ultimately, I wanted to turn something ugly — Orientalism, xenophobia, racism — into something beautiful.”
As part of the salute to Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, Experience CSO spoke to Costello about his career and how his Asian background has helped to shape him and his music-making.
He pointed to a long list of Asian musicians who have influenced him in one way or another, ranging from international classical stars like cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Yuja Wang to Chicago-area figures such as CSO members Concertmaster Robert Chen and Principal Percussion Cynthia Yeh, as well as violinist Janis Sakai and student composer Matthew Huang Mailman.
In Chicago’s jazz, indie, and creative-music scenes, Costello cited saxophonist Mai Sugimoto, bassist Tatsu Aoki, pianist Nolan Chin and composer Quinn Tsan. He also highlighted one of his “favorite Asian artists of all time” — Japanese bassist Haruomi Hosono, for both his work with Japan’s techno-pop group the Yellow Magic Orchestra and as an independent artist.
“The point is,” Costello said, “there is so much excellence to celebrate and all of these incredible Asian artists continue to shape me as a musician.”
He grew up in the West Lake View/Roscoe Village neighborhood near Ashland and West Belmont avenues. In the 1990s, he attended LaSalle Language Academy Magnet School and was part of one of the first graduating classes of Northside College Preparatory High School.
“While Northside was, and still is, a very academically rigorous high school,” he said, “the music department was outstanding and did nothing but nurture my musical development, led at the time by incredible educators Leo Park, Mike Lill and Nythia Martinez.”
While in high school, he studied trombone for two years with Richard Schmitt, who served as the CSO’s principal trombone in 1945-46 and played with many other ensembles around the city. Although Costello was quite “passionate” about the instrument at that time, it ultimately became secondary to his piano and composition studies. “I have indeed given up trombone, or at least my embouchure has, but I do still wish I could develop an outlet for playing it again,” he said.
As noted, Costello is involved with a wide spectrum of musical pursuits, serving since 2023 as a staff accompanist for the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, which helps prepare gifted young musicians from under-represented backgrounds to attend top music schools. The Negaunee Music Institute, the CSO’s educational wing, co-founded the initiative and serves as one of its lead partners.
“My top priority is always the maintenance and improvement of my piano technique and my own musical language,” he said. “This invariably takes most of my time, no matter how busy I am with specific projects.”
Although Costello had composed previously, the COVID-19 shutdown beginning in March 2020 forced him to make composition more central in his life. “At that time, live performances ended indefinitely, and with uncertain futures, it was indeed a wildly painful, stressful and turbulent moment,“ he said. ”For me, the anxiety of the time translated very smoothly into the development of original musical ideas.”
He has had a lifelong fascination with transcription, the art of taking a work composed for one instrumentation and arranging it for another. When he studied piano as part of a pre-college program at DePaul’s School of Music under Vladimir Leyetchkiss, he received weekly assignments to create piano transcriptions of orchestral works by Brahms or Mozart, gaining insights in harmony, counterpoint and the like along the way.
In addition to his career as a pianist, Leyetchkiss (who died in 2016) was also a sought-after transcriber. According to Costello, his teacher’s solo piano version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is among the most frequently performed such transcriptions.
“These lessons really had a profound effect on my relationship to the piano instrument, both in terms of my playing technique and compositional voice,“ he said. ”I got used to the idea that there is not just one ‘right’ way to play the piano and that I can be creative in finding ways for the piano to sound like almost anything.”
Being so invested in the art of transcription, the notion of making something out of something else, has even influenced his own works. “When I enjoy the special occasion of writing my own music,” he said, “I try to focus on some kind of source material, whether it is sound, music or simply a vague memory,” he said. “I particularly like when the source from which I’m drawing is ambiguous and hard to clearly define.”
