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, Magnus Lindberg and Bernard Rands. In addition, he had
masterclasses with 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) and a Fondazione
William Walton Residency Award (2008). 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, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable
Trust, the Manhattan Sinfonietta, the Heidelberger Philharmonisches
Orchester, Pro Musicis, Harvard University Asia
Center, the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater
Rochester, the Ying Quartet, World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and
Commissioning Fund, Inc., the Meridian Arts
Ensemble, the Callithumpian
Consort, New England Conservatory Chamber
Singers, the Chinese Choral Society of
Rochester, No World Quartets, Yesaroun’ Duo, VisionIntoArt, Odd Appetite, the Core Ensemble, IIIZ+, Vermont Contemporary Music
Ensemble, First Night Boston, flautist
Masahiro Arita, percussionist
Steven Schick, shakuhachi-player
Reian Bennett, conductor
Tamara Brooks, pianist Stephen Drury, saxophonist
Chien-Kwan Lin, erhu player
Xu Ke, among other organizations,
ensembles, and soloists.
Groups and soloists who have performed his works include
the Arditti Quartet, Dinosaur Annex Music
Ensemble, ALEA III, the North/South Chamber
Orchestra, the Left Coast Chamber
Ensemble, Argento Chamber
Ensemble, Ensemble Courage, Grenzenlos, conductors
Efrain Guigui and Max Lifchitz, flautist
Paula Robison, pianist Stephen Gosling, saxophonists
Kenneth Radnofsky and John Sampen, violinists
Masuko Ushioda and Haldan Martinson, cellists
Laurence Lesser and Sophie Shao, kayagum player
Ji Ae Ri, 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 Carnegie Weill Recital
Hall, Society Hall and Barge Music in New York,
Emerson Majestic Theater
and
Jordan Hall in Boston,
Herbert Zipper Concert Hall
in Los
Angeles, 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 Beijing Modern Music
Festival, 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 frequently lectures at universities and
conservatories in the USA, China and Europe,
including Baylor University, Brandeis University, Columbia University, University of California at
Davis, University of California at
Irvine, St. Olaf College, West Chester
University, Wheaton College, Bowling Green State
University, 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 Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard
University (1998-2001). He was named
Honorary Professor of composition and sound design
at Wuhan Conservatory of Music
(2000) and
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'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
Encounter, Opal and Telarc Records. A monographic CD of his
works will be released on Mode Records (due in 2009).
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