LI, Yuan-Chen

LI, Yuan-Chen

*Welcome to obtain authorization or negotiation through the above contact information

Li first arrived on the contemporary music scene in Taiwan with her very personal use of instrumentation and style in her chamber music piece Zang (the funeral) in 2000. In 2003, the expression and orchestration of her orchestral work Awakening won the prize at the Asian Music Festival 2003 in Tokyo from the Asian Composers'League, and was subsequently premiered by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In recent years, Li's music reflects her transformation of processes and concepts in Chinese phonology, Taiwanese chamber and aboriginal music, Asian traditional arts, literature, and Buddhism into a compositional technique for solo, chamber, and orchestra of both Western and Chinese instruments, offering new experience to her audience and collaborators with the cross-cultural and cross-disciplined approach to musical time, space, and drama. With her virtuosity in instrumentation and fluency in converging and synthesizing contrastingly cultural, musical and conceptual ideas, her treatment of the space of the sonority, temporality, texture, and syntax have engaged musicians of different practices, critics, researchers, and worldwide listeners.

Featuring her distinct artistry in different contexts, Li's work has been programmed in many concert series and festivals: EarTaxi New Music Festival (Chicago, 2016), American Composers Orchestra's EarShot (Buffalo, 2015), Northwestern University Institute for New Music NUNC! (Chicago, 2014), Asian Composers'League (Tel-Aviv 2012, Tokyo 2003), 2012 Thailand International Composition Festival, IMANI Winds Chamber Music Festival (New York, 2012), Contempo series (University of Chicago, 2010-2015), Peace Cross-strait Orchestra Concert (China and Taiwan, 2009), Composers/Pianists concert series (New England, 2008-9), New Music New Haven (Yale, 2006-08), The Female Form: Women Composers (New York, 2008), Listening to the 21Century (Taipei, 2007), Soundbridges (Berlin, 2007), Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Norfolk, 2007), Tune in to Taiwan 2003 (Taipei, 2003), New Ideal Dance Festival (Taipei, 2003), and Kuan-Du Musical Soiree (Taipei, 2001).

Major honors and awards include an Artist Residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2010, Taipei Artist Village), grants from the National Culture and Arts Foundation of Taiwan, the Ezra Laderman Prize, the Rena Greenwalk Memorial Prize, Finalist, Martirano Award 2016, First prize of Literature and Art Creation Award (Taiwan), the Chang-Hui Hsu Memorial Prize of Asian Composers League, Study Abroad Scholarship from the Education Minister (Taiwan), and Scholarship of Arts from Tzu Chi Foundation. Recent commissions are from the Yale-Taiwan Music Group, National Performing Arts Center (Taiwan), and soloists such as harpist Li-Ya Huang, and clarinetist Tsai-Pei Lun.

Li received Ph.D. in music composition from the University of Chicago in 2015. Her primary advisors are composers such as Marta Ptaszynska and Shulamit Ran, conductor Cliff Colnot, musicologist Martha Feldman, and theorist Lawrence Zbikowski. Before her residence in Chicago, Li earned the Artist Diploma from the Yale University. Her dissertation "Wandering Viewpoint," a concerto for solo cello and two ensembles, is about maintaining the freedom and the independence of the soloist in a highly assimilated texture and sound competed by two ensembles of similar instrumentations, which The piece receives review that Li's compositional voice "original and somewhat difficult to describe," "engaging" (Chicago Classical Review, 2015.4.24). Accompanied with her Ph.D. degree is a paper entitled "Difficult Voice in Vocal Composition, Composers'Aesthetic Responses to Secondhand Holocaust Experiences," featuring three case studies, such as Chaya Czernowin's opera Pnima…ins innere, Meredith Monk’s theater opera Quarry, and Schoenberg A Survivor from Warsaw, using psychoanalytic theory to discuss musical transgenerational phenomenon of the post-war music. Li also holds Artist Diploma from The Yale University School of Music (2008), studying composition with Martin Bresnick, and M.F.A. (2006) and B.F.A.(2003) from Taipei University of the Arts, having studied composition and theory with Tsung-Hsien Yang and Chung-Kun Hung. Before entering college she studied composition and classical music for ten years with Ting-Lien Wu.

Committed to cultivate the combination of new music composition, interpretation, and community, she has frequently collaborated with Paul Ching-Po Chiang, conductor of Moment Musicaux Philharmonia (Taiwan), National Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), and Chinese ensemble Chai-Found Music Workshop (Taiwan). Since 2011, Li has been mentored by Maestro Cliff Colnot, from whom she has been introduced to professional notation, rehearsal techniques, and editorial work for orchestra, chamber music and songs. In 2016-2017, she held a visiting professor position at Reed College (Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.), teaching advanced harmony (Atonal Music), form and analysis, composition, seminar on East Asian new music, and conducting the college orchestra.

more
Selected works
Folksong - Homage to Formosa
2010
PDF
Folksong - Homage to Formosa
2010
Intermezzo: Tsan
2005
PDF
Intermezzo: Tsan
2005
Selected works

Folksong - Homage to Formosa

2010

Intermezzo: Tsan

2005

Folksong - Homage to Formosa

2010

Intermezzo: Tsan

2005
Orchestral/Concerto Works
Title Instrumentation Year Duration NCAF-funded
Iluwan 3(1/picc,2, 3/al).2(1,2/Eng.Hrn).2(1,2/bcl).2(1,2/contra). – 2.2.2.0 – timp-2P. – hp. – strgs. 2016 9'22"
Wandering Viewpoint Concerto for Solo Cello and Two Ensembles: solo cello, 2 fl. (1,2/al.), 2 cl.(1,2/bass), 2 vln., 2 vla., 2 vc., 1 perc, 1 pno. 2015 15'
On Aldebaran 2(1,2/pic).2(1,2/Eng.Hrn).2(1,2/bcl).2. – 2.2. – 2P. – hp. – strgs. 2014 7'30"
Hovering in the Air Concerto for guzheng and string orchestra 2011 15'
Intermezzo: SHANG 2(1,2/pic).2.2(1,2/bcl).2(1,2/cb). – 2.2.2. – T.2P. – hp. – strgs. 2011 18'20"
Like A Dream, An Illusion 3(1,2,3/pic).3.3.3. – 4.3.3.1. – 4P – hp.cel.orgl. – strgs (65443 by stands), balcony: fl.hp.vln. 2007 12'30"
Awakening 4(1,2,3,pic).3(1,2,eh.).3(1,2,bcl).3(1,2,cb). – 4.3.3.1. – 4P. – 2hp. – strgs (87554 by stands). 2003 14'30"
Vocal Works/Choral
Title Instrumentation Year Duration NCAF-funded
Mist, Three Pomes by Carl Sandburg) mezzo-sp & pno 2016 6'30"
Mong Huan Pao Ying 4S4A4T4B, with or without four percussionists. 2008 7'
Three Pomes by Rabindranath Tagore sp, fl, pno, and vc. 2007 12'
Three Pomes by Shyi Mu-Rong sp & pno. 2000 10'
Chamber Music Works
Title Instrumentation Year Duration NCAF-funded
Rain Noir Noir fl, vc, and hp. 2017 15'
Dolphin 'n' Cat pno. duo 2015 8'
Harmony vln & orgl 2014 3'
Aldebaran fl/picc, cl/bs cl, vln, vc, pno, perc. 2013 6'30"
Fauna Republic fl/pic, ob, cl/bs cl, bsn, hrn, 4 perc (total 9 musicians). 2013 8'
Ice Crackle Glaze fl, vln, hp, vib, and pno. 2011 8'
Motion 2010 strg. quartet 2010 11'30"
Cats' Romp guzheng & pno. 2008 9'30"
Ring perc. quartet 2008 11'
Butterfly fl, ob, cl, bsn, and pno 2007 8'
Reminiscence kb & pno. 2006 10'30"
The Morning Bell and the Evening Drum perc. duo 2006 17'
Adagio for Promenade fl, hp, organ, and vln. 2005 12'
Intermezzo: Tsan fl, ob, cl, vib, hp, pf, cel, vn, vla, kb and guqin (Chinese 7-string zither) 2005 13'30"
The Funeral (aka, Zang) ob, pipa, perc, and kb. 2000 17'
Solo Instrumental Works
Title Instrumentation Year Duration NCAF-funded
Shadows of the Lonely Phoenix cl. 2016 12'
Shivering Winds, Serene Sky (aka.Tian jing sha) vc. 2014 6'20"
Youth Yet Young pno. 2012 6'
Migoh pno. 2007 4'30"
Cat's Romp guzheng 2003 6'
Hy pno. 2003 10'
Spell (aka. Ling) al. Sax or (b) clarinet or (c) bass flute
Other
Title Instrumentation Year Duration NCAF-funded
The Dead of Winter Piano Improvisation for Video 2013
The Upper Hallway Score for modern dance: piano 2013
Folksong - Homage to Formosa fl, cl, 2p, hp, mezzo, vla, and vc (same instrumentation as Berio’s Folk Songs). 2010 30'
ELEVEN Score for modern dance: ob, pno, perc, and tape 2009 15'
Hakka Folk Song Cycle 客家民間歌手與國樂團 2006 42'

* link to " NCAF online Archive of Grant Fruitages "website (in Chinese)

Title Instrumentation Year Duration
Shadows of the Lonely Phoenix cl. 2016 12'
Hovering in the Air Concerto for guzheng and string orchestra 2011 15'