HUANG RUO

Still young, Chinese composer Huang Ruo is already known to the musical worlds of two continents as a promising composer and scholar.  Huang's music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch, the Juilliard Symphony under James Conlon, the American Composers Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies, the ASKO Ensemble under Ilan Volkov, the Nieuw Ensemble under Ed Spanjaard, the Albany Symphony (chamber music series) under David Alan Miller, and Cho-Liang Lin with the Queens Symphony Orchestra that commissioned and premiered his violin concerto, just to name a few.  His music has been played in the Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall, the Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), the Miller Theatre, Symphony Space, the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Cultural Center, Harris Concerto Hall (Aspen), Muziekgebouw Aan 'T Ij (Amsterdam), the Paradiso Hall (Amsterdam), and the City Hall (Hong Kong).  In 2003, he was featured on the composer's portrait concert in the Miller Theater, where all his four chamber concertos were premiered as a cycle by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).   This concert was hailed by New York Times critic Allan Kozinn as number two of the Top Ten Classical Moments of 2003.  In 2007, the NAXOS Record will release his Chamber Concerto Cycle, and the Albany Record will release his orchestral lyric Leaving Sao.  Recent activity includes a collaboration with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Damian Woetzel and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, setting his Concerto No.3 Divergence for a gala event hosted by Sothebys. In March 2006, his chamber works were presented at New York's Symphony Space with the International Contemporary Ensemble, in September, the ASKO Ensemble gave the European premiere of his Concerto No. 4 Confluence in the Muziekgebouw Aan 'T Ij , Holland, and in October, the Nieuw Ensemble premiered his commissioned work also at the Muziekgebouw Aan 'T Ij   Huang's future commissions include a cello concerto for Jian Wang as part of the Miller Theatre's pocket concerto series, a chamber symphony for the IRIS Philharmonic with Michael Stern, an overture for the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra with Xian Zhang, a new work for the Sejong International Soloists, and a ballet for the New York Choreographic Institute. The Concerto No. 3 Divergence was presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in its 2006-2007 season, also by the Da Capo Chamber Players in Merkin Concert Hall, and a multi-media concert collaboration between Future In Reach (F.I.RE) and Samsung Electronic at the Samsung Experience in the Time Warner Building, NY.  

A frequent winner of the ASCAP Concert Music Award, Huang's work has been spotlighted on National Public Radio (NPR), Radio-Finland, Radio-Sweden, Radio-Amsterdam, Radio-Canada and Radio-China.  His works are published by the Huang Ruo Publishing and Recording Company which he founded in 2000. Also noted as an author, Huang's book, Selection of Classic Chinese Folk Songs, was published by the Zhong Shan University Press. For the past few years, he was invited to give lectures and forums at New York University, Columbia University, the Aspen Composers' Forum, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the Guangzhou Conservatory of Music, and was a visiting composer at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Georgia. 

Huang Ruo was born on Hainan Island, in 1976, the year the Chinese culture revolution ended.  His father, who is a well-known composer in China, started teaching him composition and piano when he was six years old.  Growing up in the 80's and the 90's, when China was steadily opening up its gate to the Western world, he received both traditional and western education in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he was admitted into the composition program studying with Deng Erbo when he turned 12.  While witnessing the dramatic cultural and economic changes in China, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, to Beatles, rock n' roll, heavy metal, and jazz, all of which were allowed to enter the cultural life of China at approximately the same time after the culture revolution.  All these 'new' western influences enable him to absorb them without any hierarchy or limitation of styles.  After winning the Henry Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland, he moved to the United States for further education.  Since then, he has gotten a BM degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a MM degree from The Juilliard School, and is working with Samuel Adler at the Juilliard School on a Doctor of Musical Art degree in the composition program. Huang is a permanent resident of the United States, and a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). 

For more information about Huang Ruo, please visit his website at: www.huangruo.com.