Items

• Xiaogang Ye

  Born on 23 September 1955, Xiaogang Ye is regarded as one of China’s leading contemporary composers. From 1978 until 1983, he studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in China and after graduation he was appointed Resident Composer and Lecturer at the Central Conservatory of Music in China. From 1987 he studied at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester in New York. Amongst his former teachers are Minxin Du, Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Louis Andriessen and Alexander Goehr. Since 1993, Ye has divided his time between Beijing and Exton, Pennsylvania. Ye is entrusted with cultural tasks as member of the Chinese Parliament, and he is presently Vice Chairman of China's Musicians' Association, Vice President of the Central Conservatory of Music, and Founder and Artistic Director of Beijing Modern Music Festival, the biggest contemporary music festival in the Far East. He has received numerous prizes and awards, among others the 1982 Alexander Tcherepnin prize, the 1986 Japan Dance Star Ballet prize, and awards from the Urban Council of Hong Kong (1987-94), the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra (1992), the China Cultural Promotion Society (1993), the Li Foundation, San Francisco (1994) and the Chinese National Symphony Orchestra (1996). In 2013 Ye was awarded with the China Arts Award. He was a fellow of the Metropolitan Life Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts in 1996, and of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2012. Ye’s oeuvre comprises symphonic works, a range of chamber music, stage works and film music, and much of his music bears a connection to Chinese culture and tradition. In The Song of the Earth for soprano and orchestra, premiered in January 2005, Ye uses the original Chinese texts on which Mahler based his symphonic work of the same name. The work has received performances in New York (Avery Fisher Hall), Munich (Philharmonie), Berlin (Konzerthaus), Venice, Rome and Lucerne. In the Macau Bridge Suite No. 2 (2001) and Four Poems of Lingnan (2011), which were recorded by the Macau Orchestra in 2014, Ye also refers to old Chinese legends and texts. The composer’s deep attachment to the nature and Buddhist religion is shown especially in composition series such as the “Tibet Series”: In Twilight of the Himalayas (2013) he gives his impressions of traveling through Tibet and Nepal. Within the “Tropic Plants Series”, each work is named after a tropical plant and characterizes the homeland of the southern Chinese composer. In August 2008, Ye's piano concerto Starry Sky was premiered during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing by Lang Lang. Accompanied by dance and light shows the live broadcast was watched by 3 billion people worldwide. Ye was the first Chinese composer to sign with Schott Music. For three decades his works have drawn attention both in Eastern Asia and in the West, being played by international orchestras and ensembles including the Munich Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and Ensemble Modern.
• Prayer of the Fall

  Xinyan Li
• Xinyan Li

  Chinese composer Dr. Xinyan Li has been acclaimed as "a formidable composer" and "a rare and very special talent". Her music has been featured at Aspen Music Festival, Sveriges Radio (Sweden), National Center for the Performing Arts (China), 44th and 45th International Double Reed Society Conference (Japan and U.S.), The 13th Thailand International Composition Festival (Thailand), The 89th Music Mountain Festival, LunArt Festival, Composers Now Festival, 19th Nordic International Bassoon Symposium (Norway), Septembre musical de l'Orne (France), Carnegie Hall, Gamle Logen (Norway), Beijing Modern Music Festival (China), The Music of Now Marathon at Symphony Space, Seal Bay Festival, Shanghai Oriental Art Center (China), 5ème concours international de musique de chambre-Lyon (France), The 11th Annual International Chamber Music Festival (China), Clarinet Symposium at the University of Maryland, Nevada Encounters of New Music, Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall (China) and SCI National Conference etc. Dr. Li's music were performed by American Composers Orchestra, Members of Eighth Blackbird, PRISM Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, Bergen Woodwind Quintet, Music From China, Principal musicians of Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, Montreal, Bergen Orchestras and Orchestre National de France, Quintet of the Americas, Lieurance Woodwind Quintet, bassoonists Per Hannevold, Jeffrey Lyman, Quintette K, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Principal Woodwind Quintet, Donald Sinta Saxophone Quartet, UW-Madison Contemporary Ensemble, AACA Orchestra, UMKC Orchestra, among others. Dr. Xinyan Li has been invited as the visiting composer by Aspen Music Festival in 2007 and 2015, where her woodwind quintet Mo Suo's Burial Ceremony and sextet Mongolian Impressions were performed. Her awards and honors include American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, IDRS Conference Schwob Prize in Composition, LunArt Festival Call for Scores, Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award, 2016 Beijing Modern Music Festival China-U.S. Composers Project Certificate of Excellence, TEMPO New Music Ensemble Call for Scores, and grant from National Endowment for the Arts as well as New York State Council on the Arts grant for individual artist. Dr. Xinyan Li received her Doctoral degree in Composition at University of Missouri-Kansas City where she studied with professors Chen Yi, James Mobberley, Zhou Long and Paul Rudy. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Composition and Music Theory at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing where she studied with professors Jin Xiang and Yang Tongba. Dr. Li has taught composition and music theory at the China Conservatory of Music, New York Philharmonic Orchestra's Very Young Composers Program and University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has given lectures at Grieg Academy in Bergen University in Norway, and Adelphi University in New York.
• Tmesis

  Bushra El-Turk
• Mosaic

  Bushra El-Turk
• Bushra El-Turk

  Born in London, Bushra El-Turk has written over 50 works for the concert hall, the stage, film, TV and live art performance. Her work is often defined by the integration of musics and musicians from different cultural traditions, and the compulsion to highlight and challenge socio-cultural issues. Her works blur written and improvisational elements, forebearing the influence of her Lebanese roots all the while leaning towards the theatrical, creating works that are '...ironic...', '...arresting...' and of 'limitless imagination'. Selected by the BBC as one of the most inspiring 100 Women of today, Bushra he has written works for the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, the Latvian Radio Choir and Atlas Ensemble, amongst others, and in 2018 has had her BBC Proms debut. Performances have been at venues including Lincoln Center, Deutsche Oper Haus, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Southbank Centre and Barbican. 2019 saw the world premiere of Tmesis for Symphony Orchestra, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Dubai Opera House at the BBC Proms Opening night, a commission by the London Symphony Orchestra to write ‘Tuqus’ for multi-ability orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, a London Sinfonietta commission and a piece for Studio Dan, commissioned by the MusikProtokol festival in Gratz. Bushra is currently writing an opera based on Nawal El-Saadawi's novel Woman at Point Zero which will be premiered in April 2021 (details to be announced), has just finished writing a piece for the Hezarfen Ensemble to be premiered at the Bristol New Music Festival, and various other exciting works to be announced soon. Bushra is artistic director and leader of Ensemble Zar, which is a fresh and fearless cross-genre ensemble, and is published by Composers Edition.
• Internet Symphony "Eroica"

  Tan Dun, ed. Peter Stanley Martin
• Tan Dun

  The world-renowned artist and UNESCO Global Goodwill Ambassador Tan Dun, has made an indelible mark on the world's music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical music, multimedia performance, and Eastern and Western traditions. A winner of today's most prestigious honors including the Grammy Award, Oscar/Academy Award, Grawemeyer Award, Bach Prize, Shostakovich Award, and most recently Italy’s Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, Tan Dun's music has been played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television. This past year, Tan Dun conducted the grand opening celebration of Disneyland Shanghai which was broadcast to a record-breaking audience worldwide. As a conductor of innovative programs around the world, Tan Dun has led the China tours of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra. His current season includes leading the NDR Radiophilharmonie in a five-city tour in Germany, as well as engagements with the London Symphony Orchestra and at the Venice Biennale. Tan Dun currently serves as the Honorary Artistic Director of the China National Symphony Orchestra. Next season, he will also conduct Orchestre National de Lyon in their tour to China. Tan Dun has led the world's most esteemed orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Münchner Philharmoniker, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, among others. Tan Dun’s individual voice has been heard widely by international audiences. His first Internet Symphony, which was commissioned by Google/YouTube, has reached over 23 million people online. His Organic Music Trilogy of Water, Paper and Ceramic has frequented major concert halls and festivals. Paper Concerto was premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the opening of the Walt Disney Hall. His multimedia work, The Map, premiered by YoYo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has toured more than 30 countries worldwide. Its manuscript has been collected by the Carnegie Hall Composers Gallery. His Orchestral Theatre IV: The Gate was premiered by Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra and crosses the cultural boundaries of Peking Opera, Western Opera and puppet theatre traditions. Other important premieres include Four Secret Roads of Marco Polo for the Berlin Philharmonic, Piano Concerto “The Fire” for Lang Lang and the New York Philharmonic. In recent seasons, his percussion concerto, The Tears of Nature, for soloist Martin Grubinger premiered in 2012 with the NDR Symphony 2 Orchestra and Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women Symphony for 13 Microfilms, Harp and Orchestra was co-commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. As a visual artist, Tan Dun’s work has been featured at the opening of the China Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. Other solo exhibitions include the New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Beijing’s Chambers Fine Art Gallery, and Shanghai Gallery of Art. Most recently, Tan Dun conducted The Juilliard Orchestra in the world premiere of his Symphony of Colors: Terracotta for the opening of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s epic exhibition The Age of Empires. As a global cultural leader, Tan Dun uses his creativity to raise awareness of environmental issues and to protect cultural diversity. In 2010, as “Cultural Ambassador to the World” for the World EXPO Shanghai, Tan Dun envisioned, curated and composed two special site-specific performances that perform year-round and have since become cultural representations of Shanghai: Peony Pavilion, a Chinese opera set in a Ming Dynasty garden and his Water Heavens string quartet which promotes water conservation and environmental awareness. Tan Dun was also commissioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to write the Logo Music and Award Ceremony Music for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Tan Dun currently serves as Honorary Chair of Carnegie Hall’s China Advisory Council, and has previously served as Creative Chair of the 2014 Philadelphia Orchestra China Tour, Associate Composer/Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, and Artistic Director of the Festival Water Crossing Fire held at the Barbican Centre. Tan Dun records for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Opus Arte and Naxos. His recordings have garnered many accolades, including a Grammy Award (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and nomination (The First Emperor; Marco Polo; Pipa Concerto), Japan’s Recording Academy Awards for Best Contemporary Music CD (Water Passion after St. Matthew) and the BBC’s Best Orchestral Album (Death and Fire). Tan Dun’s music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc and represented worldwide by the Music Sales Group of Classical Companies.
• A Porter's Song

  Bright Sheng
• Thirty-Mile Village

  Bright Sheng
• Hot Pepper

  Bright Sheng
• Northern Lights

  Bright Sheng
• Melodies of a Flute

  Bright Sheng
• Three Tunes

  Bright Sheng
• Dance Capriccio

  Bright Sheng
• Bright Sheng

  Bright Sheng is respected as one of the leading composers of our time, whose stage, orchestral, chamber and vocal works are performed regularly by the greatest performing arts institutions throughout North America, Europe and Asia. A MacArthur fellow and proclaimed by the foundation as “an innovative composer who merges diverse musical customs in works that transcend conventional aesthetic boundaries”, Sheng has created an oeuvre that is not only with Asian influence but also with strong synthesis of Western musical tradition which makes his work distinctive and original. Sheng himself admits: “I consider myself both 100% American and 100% Asian.” In September of 2016, in a co-production with the Hong Kong Arts Festival, with sold-out runs at both places, the San Francisco Opera premiered Sheng’s commissioned opera Dream of The Red Chamber featuring a libretto by David Henry Hwang and Sheng, based on a beloved Chinese novel by the eighteenth century writer Cao Xueqin. In September he conducts a three-city tour of the production in China. In addition to composing, Sheng enjoys an active career as a conductor and concert pianist, and frequently acts as music advisor and artistic director to orchestras and festivals. He is currently the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor at University of Michigan, and the Y. K. Pao Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology where, in 2011, he founded and has been serving as the Artistic Director of The Intimacy of Creativity—The Bright Sheng Partnership: Composers Meet Performers in Hong Kong. He was born on December 6th, 1955, in Shanghai, and moved to New York in l982 where he pursued his graduate works and studied composition and conducting privately with his mentor Leonard Bernstein. Bright Sheng's music is exclusively published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and eleven exclusive CDs. Please follow www.brightsheng.com
• Entanglement: one-act chamber opera

  Charlotte Bray
• Charlotte Bray

  The composer Charlotte Bray has emerged as a distinctive and outstanding talent of her generation. Exhibiting uninhibited ambition and desire to communicate, her music is exhilarating, inherently vivid, and richly expressive with lyrical intensity. Born in High Wycombe in 1982, Bray graduated from Birmingham Conservatoire with First Class Honours, having studied composition with Joe Cutler. She completed a Masters in Advanced Composition with Distinction from the Royal College of Music studying with Mark-Anthony Turnage and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Royal College of Music scholarship, The Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the RVW Trust. She went on to participate in the Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition Course with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Magnus Lindberg, and was awarded a scholarship to study at the Tanglewood Music Centre with John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Shulamit Ran and Augusta Read-Thomas. Bray has been championed by numerous world-class ensembles and orchestras, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta, Britten Sinfonia, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Symphony Orchestra, the CBSO Youth Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and large-scale pieces for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Her work has featured at the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Tanglewood, Aix-en-Provence, Verbier, West Cork and the Copenhagen Summer Festival. Several renowned conductors have performed her work and these include Sir Mark Elder, Oliver Knussen, Sakari Oramo, Daniel Harding and Jessica Cottis. Recent premieres include: triple concerto Germinate (May 2019), Sitkovetsky Trio and the Philharmonia, Investec International Music Festival; Red Swans Floating (June 2019), notabu.ensemble and Spectra Ensemble, Tonhalle Düsseldorf; Bring Me All Your Dreams (June 2019), Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Aldeburgh Festival; Reflections In Time (May 2018), London Sinfonietta; Mid-Oceaned (viola and cello, May 2018), Ralf Ehlers and Lucas Fels (Arditti Quartet), Hepner Foundation; In Black Light (July 2018), Tabea Zimmerman, Aix-en-Provence Festival. Bray’s second recording (October 2018), a disc of chamber works on the Richard Thomas Classical label, was recorded at the Sendesaal in Bremen, Germany, with the Amaryllis Quartet, the Mariani Piano Quartet and pianist Huw Watkins, supported by PRS Foundation’s Composer Fund. At the Speed of Stillness, Bray’s debut recording on NMC Records was released in October 2014. Her work features also in several discs including Tecchlers Cello by Guy Johnston (Kings College Cambridge 2017), Oberon Celebrates Shakespeare by the Oberon Trio (Avi-music and SWR 2016) and Upheld by Stillness by the choral ensemble Ora, (Harmonia Mundi, released February 2016). In recognition of achievements and growing reputation, Bray was selected as a MacDowell Colony Norton Stevens Fellow (2015-16). She was interviewed as part of BBC Radio 3’s Composers’ Room series 2015. Bray is an Honorary Member of Birmingham Conservatoire and was named as their Alumni of the Year 2014 in the field of Excellence in Sport or the Arts. She was a winner of the Lili Boulanger Prize and a Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent (2014). Listed in The Evening Standard’s Most Influential Londoners (2011). Bray was awarded the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize and appointed as apprentice Composer-in-Residence with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Sound and Music (2009/10). She was the inaugural Composer-in-Residence with Oxford Lieder Festival (2011) and Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival (2015). Residencies include the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire (2013 and 2015), the Liguria Study Centre in Bogliasco (2013), and Aldeburgh Music (2010 and 2015).
• Echolocation

  Takuma Itoh
• Takuma Itoh

  Takuma Itoh spent his early childhood in Japan before moving to Northern California where he grew up. His music has been described as "brashly youthful and fresh" (New York Times). Featured amongst one of "100 Composers Under 40" on NPR Music and WQXR, he has been the recipient of such awards and commissions as: the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Music Alive: New Partnerships grant with the Tucson Symphony, the Barlow Endowment, the Chamber Music America Classical Commission, the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, six ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Leo Kaplan Award, the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, the Symphony in C Young Composer Competition, the New York Youth Symphony First Music, The New York Virtuoso Singers, Maui Arts & Cultural Center, and the Renée B Fisher Foundation. In 2018, Itoh was instrumental in creating an innovative education program, Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds, which brought over 8,000 young students to hear new orchestral compositions alongside original animations while raising awareness of Hawaii's many endangered forest bird species. Itoh's music has been performed by the Albany Symphony, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Ensemble Échappé, Ossia New Music, the New York Youth Symphony, Symphony in C, the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra (Poland), the Shanghai Quartet, the St. Lawrence Quartet, the Cassatt Quartet, the Momenta Quartet, Invoke Quartet, Sara Davis Buechner, Jeffrey Jacob, Joseph Lin, Ignace Jang, Syzygy Ensemble (Australia), H2 Quartet, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, the Music from Copland House, the Varied Trio, Kojiro Umezaki, HUB New Music Ensemble, Duo Yumeno, Post-Haste Reed Duo, Pro Musica Nipponia, and Linda Chatterton. In addition, his works can be heard on Albany and Blue Griffin Records, and is published by Theodore Presser, Resolute Music, and Murphy Music Press. In 2015, Itoh scored the music for the short film "Salesi" directed by Garin Nugroho and Vilsoni Hereniko that was featured at the Honolulu Film Festival. Itoh has been a fellow at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, Cabrillo Composer Workshop, Wellesley Composers Conference, Copland House CULTIVATE, Pacific Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival. He holds degrees from Cornell University, University of Michigan, and Rice University. His past teachers include Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Shih-Hui Chen, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, and Karim Al-Zand. Since 2012, Itoh has been teaching at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa where he serves as an Associate Professor of Music.
• Aeriality

  Anna Thorvaldsdottir
• Dreaming

  Anna Thorvaldsdottir
• Anna Thorvaldsdottir

  Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977) is an Icelandic composer whose “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (NY Times) and “striking” (Guardian) sound world has made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). “Never less than fascinating” (Gramophone), her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyrical material, and tends to evoke “a sense of place and personality” (NY Times) through a distinctive “combination of power and intimacy” (Gramophone). It is written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other, often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, in particular structural ones, like proportion and flow. Anna’s works have been nominated and awarded on many occasions - most notably, her “confident and distinctive handling of the orchestra” (Gramophone) has garnered her the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize, the New York Philharmonic's Kravis Emerging Composer Award, and Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award and Martin E. Segal Award. Anna’s music is frequently performed internationally and has been performed by orchestras and ensembles such as the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Yarn/Wire, The Crossing, the Bavarian Radio Choir, Münchener Kammerorchester, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Avanti Chamber Ensemble, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, CAPUT Ensemble, Oslo Philharmonic, and Either/Or Ensemble. In April 2018, Esa-Pekka Salonen lead the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of Anna’s work METACOSMOS, which was commissioned by the orchestra, and the work received its European premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic in January 2019, conducted by Alan Gilbert. METACOSMOS received its UK premiere at the BBC Proms 2019. Anna’s latest orchestral work - the large-scale AION - was commissioned by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and premiered in May 2019, conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing. Anna is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been featured at several major venues and music festivals, including portrait concerts at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, the Composer Portraits Series at NYC's Miller Theatre, the Leading International Composers series at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Big Ears Festival, Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn's National Sawdust, London's Spitalfields Music Festival, Münchener Kammerorchester's Nachtmusic der Moderne series, and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra's Point Festival. Other venues include the BBC Proms, ISCM World Music Days, Nordic Music Days, Ultima Festival, Lucerne Summer Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Tectonics, Helsinki's Musica Nova Festival, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Anna holds a PhD (2011) from the University of California in San Diego. She regularly teaches and gives presentations on composition, in academic settings, as part of residencies, and in private lessons. In spring 2019, she was Composer-in-Residence at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She is currently based in the London area.
• Spiral X

  Chinary Ung