Born: 1976, Hainan Island, China

“New music is not a problem, it is a solution.”

Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “strikingly assured,” Huang Ruo’s music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Asko Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, and the Dutch Vocal Laboratory, under such conductors as Wolfgang Sawallisch, James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, Ed Spanjaard, Ilan Volkov, Michael Stern, and Xian Zhang. In 2003, at the age of 26, he was the youngest composer to be featured on the Miller Theatre’s renowned Composer Portraits series; New York Times critic Allan Kozinn hailed the concert as the second on his list of the “Top Ten Classical Moments of 2003.” Also a film composer, Huang Ruo’s score for the film Jian-Fu Garden will become part of the permanent collection at the Beijing Forbidden City Palace Museum, where the film will be screened regularly. MO: Concerto for Sheng and Chamber Ensemble received the Luxembourg Society for Contemporary Music’s 2008 International Composition Prize. Huang Ruo earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the Juilliard School; his composition teachers have included Randolph Coleman and Samuel Adler. He is a member of the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase. For more information, please visit huangruo.com.

Further listening:

Chamber Concerto Cycle (2000-2002)
International Contemporary Ensemble
Huang Ruo, conductor (Naxos)

Leaving Sao (2004)
Bowling Green Philharmonia
Emily Freeman Brown, conductor (Albany)