Roziht Eve: '#SF'

The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Roziht Eve is an experimental composer who creates lyrical, ambient electronic music using an electronic cello, piano and her voice. Originally from Taiwan, she recently earned her master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in Technology and Applied Composition.

“I grew up there, and then I moved to America to study for my bachelor’s. And then I thought I’d go back to Taiwan after, like, three years, but I just kept staying,” Eve said. “I’m still obsessed with the city.”

She says her composition is like ‘a documentary of my memories but in the form of sound.’ She came up with the melody for “#SF” when she was in the process of relocating from Hawaii to San Francisco. On the flight to San Francisco, she remembered feeling like her life would soon become much more challenging.

“I remember I was holding my daughter’s hand, thinking, ‘I’m going to get the best life for you,'” Eve said. “And I believe that wherever you go, you can make that place become the best place of your life.”

Raising a daughter (who will be turning 7 years old at the end of the month) has also made an impact on Eve’s music.

“I think my daughter has taught me so much about two things: one is listening, and the other is to create fearlessly,” Eve said. “I’m just watching her, how she listens, how she experiences the world, and she has a strong sense of curiosity. It has been changing the way I compose.”

Roziht recorded “#SF” while in grad school with the help of her friend Emma Markowitz, who recorded and mixed this song as a class assignment at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. They had two hours to complete the assignment.

“I feel like it really helped me to see how creative I can become when you have a limited time,” she said. “I love to collaborate and get to really connect with the city, the people of the city and to risk more in my composition.”

She describes herself as an improvisation enthusiast and teaches music at a San Francisco elementary school.

“#SF” was engineered by Emma Markowitz and Kelley Coyne. Roziht Eve will be performing with Christopher Willits in an evening of electronic ambient music at the Robot Heart residency in Oakland on Nov. 29 at 8 p.m.