LEI LIANG, composer [September 6-7, 2018]
Chinese-born American composer LEI LIANG (梁雷,b. Nov. 28, 1972, Tianjin) is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. He 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 composer 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, 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, Elliot 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 International Fereinkurse fur Neue Musik at Darmstadt.
As the composer selected by ECU music students for through the NewMusic Initiative’s unique Commissioning Program, Lei Liang visits us in September to begin the collaborative phase of his commission. Mr. Liang will compose a work for multiple instruments to be delivered December, 2019, and premiered/recorded in the spring, 2020. This September, 2018 visit will be an opportunity for us to welcome Mr. Liang into our community, for him to meet our students, conductors, teach classes, and work with student composers.
[September 6-7, 2018 @ A.J. Fletcher School of Music]