Global Summer Institute of Music

Lei Liang

Heralded as “one of the most exciting voices in New Music” (The Wire), Lei Liang is a Chinese-born American composer whose works have been described as “hauntingly beautiful” by The New York Times, and as “far, far out of the ordinary, brilliantly original and inarguably gorgeous” by The Washington Post.

Winner of the 2011 Rome Prize, Lei Liang is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Aaron Copland Award. He was named a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

Lei Liang was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert for the inaugural concert of the CONTACT! new music series. Other commissions and performances come from Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the Taipei Chinese Orchestra, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, the Arditti Quartet, Shanghai Quartet, the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, New York New Music Ensemble and Boston Musica Viva. Lei Liang’s music is recorded on Mode, New World, Naxos and Bridge Records.

Lei Liang currently serves as Composer-in-Residence at California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) where his multimedia works combine computer technology, scientific research with cultural re-imagination and preservation. 

Lei Liang studied composition with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Robert Cogan, Chaya Czernowin, and Mario Davidovsky, and received degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (BM and MM) and Harvard University (PhD). A Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he held fellowships from Harvard Society of Fellows and the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships. Lei Liang is Professor of Music and Acting Chair of the Music Department at the University of California, San Diego. His music is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation (New York).