Biography
Chinese-born
American composer Lei Liang (梁雷,
b. Nov. 28, 1972, Tianjin) received his first piano lessons
at the age of four, and began composing at age six. His
piano teacher Zhou
Guang-ren encouraged him
to compose without formal training. He received several
awards in China for composition and piano performance
during childhood, including three honors in the
Xinghai
National Piano Music Competition (special
distinction, 1984; Third Prize, 1987; Second Prize, 1988),
where his early piano music has been in the mandatory
repertoire since 1984, and Second Prize for piano
performance in the Jing-Jin-Sui competition (1988). In
1989, Beijing
Qingnianbao—Beijing
Youth Daily—named him one
of its ten “Persons of the Year.”
In 1990, Lei
Liang left his family for the USA as a high school student.
He studied piano with
William Race in Austin, Texas
before shifting his focus to composition. He received
degrees from the New England
Conservatory of Music (BM & MM,
both with academic honors and distinction in performance)
and Harvard University
(PhD). His
composition teachers include
Sir Harrison Birtwistle,
Robert
Cogan,
Chaya Czernowin,
Mario
Davidovsky,
Joshua
Fineberg,
Elliott
Gyger,
Lee Hyla
and
Bernard
Rands. In addition,
he had masterclasses with
Magnus Lindberg,
James
Tenney, and
Chinary
Ung at Harvard, and
with
Georg Friedrich Haas,
Toshio Hosokawa and
Wolfgang
Mitterer at the
Internationale
Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at
Darmstadt.
Lei Liang
received the George Whitefield Chadwick Medal—the honor
the New England
Conservatory bestows upon its
most outstanding graduates—as well as the Tourjée Alumni
Scholarship Award (both in 1996). He was a
Paul & Daisy Soros
Fellow (2002-4), and
received a grant from the
Milton Fund at Harvard
University (2001), a
Heinrich Strobel Foundation bursary from
the
South West German Radio Experimentalstudio
(2004), a
Meet the Composer/MetLife Creative Connections
Grant (2007), a
Fondazione William
Walton Residency Award
(2008), an Aaron Copland
Award (2008),
ASCAPLUS
Award (2008) and
a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009). Lei
Liang is the recipient of the Elliott Carter
Rome Prize from the American Academy in
Rome (2011), and
the Alpert/Ragdale Prize in Music
Composition (2012). He received an honorable mention in
the Aliénor
Awards for
harpsichord composition competition (2004, for
Some
Empty Thoughts of a Person from
Edo), the
George Arthur Knight Prize from
Harvard University
(2006,
for Serashi
Fragments) and was a
finalist for the Thailand
International Composition Competition for
Saxophone (2006,
for Parallel
Gardens).
Lei Liang has
received commissions from the Fromm Music
Foundation,
Meet the Composer,
Chamber Music America, the
Mary Flagler Cary Charitable
Trust,
National Endowment for the
Arts, the
New York
Philharmonic, the
Manhattan
Sinfonietta, the
Taipei Chinese
Orchestra, the
Heidelberger
Philharmonisches Orchester,
Pro Musicis, the
Ying Quartet, the
Shanghai Quartet, the
Meridian Arts
Ensemble, the
Callithumpian
Consort,
Boston Musica
Viva, the
Core
Ensemble,
Yesaroun’
Duo,
VisionIntoArt,
Odd
Appetite,
IIIZ+,
No World Quartets,
Harvard University
Asia Center,
World-Wide
Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund,
Inc.,
New England Conservatory Chamber
Singers,
First Night
Boston, the
Chinese Choral Society of
Rochester, the
Arts & Cultural Council
for Greater Rochester, the
South Bay Guitar
Society,
flautist
Masahiro Arita,
percussionist
Steven Schick, pianist
Stephen
Drury,
saxophonist Chien-Kwan
Lin, pipa
player Wu Man, erhu
player Xu
Ke,
shakuhachi-player Reian
Bennett,
conductor Tamara
Brooks, among other
organizations, ensembles, and soloists.
Groups and
soloists who have performed his works include the
Arditti
Quartet,
New York New Music
Ensemble,
San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players,
Dinosaur
Annex Music Ensemble,
Argento
Chamber Ensemble,
ALEA III,
Continuum, the
North/South Chamber
Orchestra,
the Left
Coast Chamber Ensemble,
Ensemble
Courage,
Grenzenlos,
PRISM
Quartet, Continuum
Ensemble, conductors Jeffrey Milarsky,
Efrain
Guigui and
Max
Lifchitz,
flautist Paula
Robison,
pianists
Aleck Karis,
Joanna
Chao and
Stephen
Gosling,
saxophonists Kenneth Radnofsky
and
John
Sampen,
violinists
Masuko Ushioda and
Haldan Martinson,
cellists
Laurence Lesser and
Sophie
Shao, erhu player
Wang Guowei, kayagum player Ji Ae
Ri, koto
player
Masayo Ishigure, guzheng
player Wang
Chang-Yuan, pipa
player Gao
Hong, guanzi
player
Bao Jian and sheng
player
Hu Jian-bing.
Lei Liang’s
music has been performed around the world, at venues such
as Merkin
Concert Hall,
Carnegie Weill Recital Hall,
Symphony Space,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Arts
(MoMA), the Joyce Theater,
Society
Hall,
Le Poisson
Rouge, and Bargemusic
in New
York,
Jordan Hall,
Emerson Majestic
Theater, and the
Institute of Contemporary
Art in
Boston, Herbert Zipper Concert
Hall in Los
Angeles, Herbst
Theatre in San
Francisco, Tsuda
Hall in Tokyo,
Ishihara Hall
in
Osaka,
Philharmonic Hall in Kiev,
and National
Experimental Theatre in Taipei. His
music was performed at the Composers
Conference at
Wellesley
College, the
Aspen Music Festival, the
Musica Nova Festival in
Helsinki, World Saxophone
Congresses in Minneapolis
and Ljubljana, the International Gaudeamus
Interpreters Competition, the
Ditson
Festival of Contemporary Music, the
Beijing Modern Music
Festival,
Shanghai Conservatory of Music New Music
Week, the
Festival de Música de
Cámara de San Miguel de Allende and the
Festival
Internacional Cervantino in Mexico. His
electronic music has been featured at Spark Festival of Electronic
Music and Art at the
University of
Minnesota,
Imagine2 Electro-Acoustic Music Festival
in
Memphis, GAMMA
UT and the Workshop
on Computer Music and Audio Technology in Taipei.
NPR,
PBS,
CBC,
Radio Free Asia
as
well as TV and radio programs in China have broadcast his
music.
Lei Liang
composed film music for “The Giver” (dir. Agnes Mei-Yee
Chu), “Shall We
Sing?” (dir.
by Reina
Higashitani) and incidental
music for “Der gute Mensch von Sezuan” (Brecht, dir. Ying
Qian). His music has been choreographed by
Garth Fagan,
Tiffany Rhynard,
Ling
Chu, Jeong-Ae Yoon,
You Shao-ching, and Butoh dancer Masashi
Harada.
As a scholar,
Lei Liang is especially interested in the research and
preservation of traditional Asian music. In collaboration
with the
World Music Archive at
Loeb Music
Library of
Harvard
University, he conducted
an extensive interview with the huqin-player Ni Qiu-ping
(1905-95). He also digitized historical recordings of guqin
music for the Music Research Institute of the Chinese
Academy of Arts in Beijing. He is the co-producer of the
historical recordings of the Mongolian chaoer player
Serashi (1887-1968) released by China Record
Corporation. His articles
about traditional and contemporary Asian music have
appeared in numerous journals in the USA and China, notably
in Contemporary
Music Review (as issue
co-editor, with Edward
Green),
Sonus
(Cambridge,
MA), Renmin
Yinyue—People’s
Music,
Yinyue
Zhoubao—Music
Weekly，Zhongyang Yinyue
Xueyuan Xuebao—Journal of
the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing),
Yinyue Yishu—The Art of
Music (Shanghai),
Huangzhong—Journal
of the Wuhan Conservatory of Music (Wuhan),
Xinghai
Yinyue Xueyuan Xuebao—Journal of
Xinghai Conservatory of Music (Guangzhou),
as
well as
Neimenggu Daxue Yishu Xueyuan
Xuebao—Journal of
the College of Arts of Inner Mongolia
University (Inner
Mongolia).
Lei Liang’s
music is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation (New
York). Lei Liang's
early piano music appears in numerous anthologies of
contemporary Chinese piano music published by
Huayue Music Press and
Renmin Yinyue
Chubanshe—People's
Music Press (Beijing). His recordings are released
on Spektral,
GM, Einstein,
Encounter, Opal and
Telarc Records. A portrait CD
of his works is released on Mode Records
in
2009, funded in part through a grant from the Aaron Copland
Fund for Music, Inc. His 3rd portrait CD was released on
New World Records in 2011, funded in part through grants
from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and Alice Ditson
Fund of Columbia University. His next portrait CD will be
released on Naxos International.
Lei Liang has
been invited to give lectures at universities and
conservatories in the USA, Asia and Europe,
including Universität für Musik und
darstellende Kunst in Vienna, Toho
Gakuen in Tokyo, Baylor
University,
Boston
University,
Brandeis
University,
Columbia
University,
Stanford
University,
UC Berkeley,
UC Santa
Cruz,
UC
Davis,
UC Irvine,
St. Olaf
College,
Northwestern
University, Montclair
State University, University of Nevada Las
Vegas,
Bowling Green State
University,
West Chester
University,
Wheaton
College,
Manhattan School of
Music,
New England
Conservatory,
Boston
Conservatory,
Peking
University,
Tsinghua
University,
Xiamen
University,
Shanghai
Conservatory,
Central
Conservatory,
China
Conservatory,
Wuhan
Conservatory,
Xinghai
Conservatory,
Xi'an Conservatory,
Nanjing Normal
University,
Zhejiang Normal
University,
Hunan University of Arts and
Sciences.
Lei Liang was a
Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows of
Harvard University (1998-2001) -
the highest honor bestowed by the University to a young
scholar. He has taught in China as Honorary Professor of
Composition and Sound Design at
Wuhan Conservatory of Music (2000) and as
the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Shaanxi Normal
University College of Arts
in Xi’an (2004). He taught music theory at
Harvard University
(2003-6) where
he received the Derek Bok Distinguished Teaching Award. He
taught composition and theory at Middlebury College
as
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music (2006-7). As Chair of
the Boston chapter of the National Guild for Piano
Teachers (2005-6), Lei
Liang also shared his passion for music with children. He
was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum
in 2008.
Lei Liang is
Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, San
Diego.
* LIANG is his
family name; LEI is his given name.
–Dan
Albertson, The Living Composers
Project