Hao Zou

Zou Hao was born in Huaibei City in China’s Anhui Province in 1996. Having begun learning the piano and erhu at an early age, in 2009 he was admitted to the Music Middle School affiliated with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music to pursue composition under Professor Ding Ying’s tutelage. In 2019, he graduated with a bachelor’s in composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where, supported by a distinguished scholarship, he studied under Drs. Jesse Jones and Stephen Hartke. In the same year, he received a full scholarship to pursue a master’s in composition with Drs. Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Yotam Haber at the UMKC Conservatory of Music.

Zou has won awards, including the 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Award, at several prestigious international piano and composition competitions, and many of his instrumental works have been published and distributed by Shanghai Music Publishing House, RMN Music, and Ablaze Records. In his compositions, he weaves together diverse timbres to create complex sounds and reimagine the poetics and charm of the traditional Chinese culture that he has known since childhood.