Yu-Hui Chang

Yu-Hui Chang

Fellow: Awarded 2009
Field of Study: Music Composition

Competition: US & Canada

Brandeis University

Composer Yu-Hui Chang has been recognized by numerous prestigious institutions, such as the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House, and with fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard. Awards abroad include Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize from the Asian Composers League, and a composition award from the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan (Taiwanese government agency).

Performances of Yu-Hui’s compositions have taken places across continents in the Netherlands, Italy, UK, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and throughout the U.S.. Using a decidedly contemporary language of diverse harmonic color, inventive timbre and ingenious effects, her music effortlessly resonates with professional musicians and audiences alike, leading to numerous commissions, including those from the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, Alea III, Volti, Triple Helix Piano Trio, Ju Percussion Group, the Tone-Melody Flute Ensemble, Chamber Music Now, the Arts Council Korea, the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center of Taiwan, the 2003 Seoul International Festival of Women in Music Today, Brandeis Theater Company, cellist Rhonda Rider, percussionist Chris Froh, and violist Lois Martin.

Many other top-rated musicians and organizations have also given performances of her works to critical acclaim, such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, Nieuw Ensemble, the Group for Contemporary Music, Dinosaur Annex, Auros Group for New Music, Adorno Ensemble, Xanthos Ensemble, Lydian String Quartet, Alexander String Quartet, New Asia String Quartet, Marilyn Nonken, Amy Briggs, and erhu virtuoso Jiebing Chen.

In March 2006, Works and Process at the New York Guggenheim Museum presented three of her works, highlighting Yu-Hui as a new talent of the younger generation.  Numerous prominent national and international festivals have also featured her music, including the Second London Festival of American Music, the Asian Music Festival in Tokyo, the Asian Contemporary Music Festival in Seoul, the Conference and Festival of the Asian Composers’ League in Taipei, the Festival of New Music at the Florida State University-Tallahassee, the Pacific Rim Music Festival at UC Santa Cruz, the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, April in Santa Cruz New Music Festival, and the Festival of New American Music at California State University – Sacramento.

A native of Taiwan, Yu-Hui began her intensive music training in piano, voice, and music theory at the age of six, and started seriously pursuing composition as a career at the age of fourteen.   After graduating from the National Taiwan Normal University, she came to the United States in 1994 and received her graduate degrees from Brandeis University (Ph.D.) and Boston University (MM).   Now an Associate Professor at Brandeis University, Yu-Hui taught at the University of California-Davis between 1999-2006 and co-directed the Empyrean Ensemble, a professional new music ensemble in residence at the UCD Music Department.

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