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). 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, the
New York
Philharmonic, the
Manhattan
Sinfonietta, the
Heidelberger
Philharmonisches Orchester,
Pro
Musicis, the
Ying
Quartet, the
Meridian Arts
Ensemble, the
Callithumpian
Consort,
Boston Musica
Viva, the
Core
Ensemble,
Yesaroun’
Duo,
VisionIntoArt,
Odd
Appetite,
IIIZ+,
No
World Quartets,
Vermont
Contemporary Music Ensemble,
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,
flautist Masahiro
Arita,
percussionist Steven
Schick, pianist
Stephen
Drury,
saxophonist Chien-Kwan
Lin, 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,
San
Francisco Contemporary Music Players,
Dinosaur Annex
Music Ensemble,
Argento Chamber
Ensemble,
ALEA
III, 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), Society
Hall 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
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
piano music is published by Huayue Music
Press, and appears in
numerous anthologies of contemporary Chinese piano music
published by Renmin Yinyue
Chubanshe—People's
Music Press (Beijing). His recordings are released
on Spektral,
GM,
Encounter, Opal and Telarc
Records. A monographic
CD of his works is released on Mode
Records in 2009.
Lei Liang has
been invited to give lectures at universities and
conservatories in the USA, China and Europe,
including Baylor
University,
Boston
University,
Brandeis
University,
Columbia
University,
Stanford
University,
UC
Berkeley,
UC
Santa Cruz,
UC
Davis,
UC
Irvine,
St.
Olaf College,
Northwestern
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, and
Universität
für Musik und darstellende Kunst in
Vienna.
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.
Lei Liang is
Assistant 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