Dr. Lei Liang

Biography

Lei Liang is a Chinese-born American composer known for his hauntingly beautiful and sonically colorful works. He is a recipient of the 2011 Rome Prize and has also been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Award, the Koussevitzky Foundation Commission, the Creative Capital Award, and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His concerto for saxophone and orchestra, 'Xiaoxiang', was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2015. Liang's orchestral composition, 'Thousand Mountains, Million Streams', won the prestigious 2021 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He has been commissioned by major ensembles including the New York Philharmonic for its inaugural concert series 'CONTACT!', and his works have been performed by notable groups such as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Shanghai Quartet. Additionally, Liang is a scholar and conservationist who has edited and co-edited ten books and has published over fifty articles. He served as the Composer-in-Residence at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology from 2013 to 2016 and is currently the Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. His recent works engage with complex social issues such as sex trafficking and gun violence, as well as environmental awareness through innovative sonification of coral reefs.

Research Interests