Chinese folk rock
Artist : Huang Ruo Date : 2006.09.01
Genre : contemporary music Length : 41
Huang Ruo (born 1976, Hainan Island, China)
Still in his 20s, Chinese composer Huang Ruo is already known to the musical worlds of two continents as a promising young composer and scholar. Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “strikingly assured,” 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 under David Alan Miller, the IRIS Chamber Orchestra under Michael Stern, 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 Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center), the Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), the Miller Theatre, the Symphony Space, the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Harris Concerto Hall (Aspen), the 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 The 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. His recent activity including a collaboration with the New York City Ballet principal dancer and choreographer Damian Woetzel and Christopher Wheeldon, setting his concerto No.3 Divergence for a gala event hosted by the Sothebys. Recently, the ASKO Ensemble gave the European premiere of his Concerto No. 4 Confluence in the MUZIEKGEBOUW AAN ‘T IJ, Holland, and the Nieuw Ensemble premiered his new commissioned work Curve of the Shadow also at the MUZIEKGEBOUW AAN ‘T IJ. Huang’s future commissions include a cello concerto for Jian Wang, co-commissioned by the ASCAP Foudation, as part of the Miller Theatre’s pocket concerto series, a Sheng concerto for Wu Wei and the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller, an overture for the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra under Xian Zhang, and a new work for the Sejong International Soloists. Upcoming performances include Concerto No. 3 Divergence presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in its 2006-07 season, also by the Da Capo Chamber Players in Merkin Concert Hall, Curve of the Shadow performed by the Nieuw Ensemble in Amsterdam’s MUZIEKGEBOUW AAN ‘T IJ, and a multi-media concert collaborating 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 the New York University, Columbia University, the Aspen Composers’ Forum, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, 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 in Hainan Island, 1976, the year the Chinese culture revolution ended. His father, who is a well-known composer in China, started teaching him composition and piano since 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. Witnessing the dramatic cultural and economic changes in China, his education expending from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, to Beatles, rock n’ roll, heavy metal, and jazz, all of which were allowed to enter the cultural life in China approximately the same time after the culture revolution. All these ‘new’ western influences enable him to absorb them without any hierarchy and limitation of styles. Being part of the new generation Chinese composers, he knew clearly that his goal and task is not just to simply mix both Western and Eastern elements, but to go beyond that to create a seamless syntheses and a convincing organic unity, drawing influences from various genres and cultures. 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 approaching a Doctor of Musical Art degree in 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
Vocal tone performed by: Nederlands Vocaal Laboratorium, Jennifer-Claire van der Hart, José Kamminga, Gilad Nezer
