Yizhang Liu

Liu Yizhang is a composer who crosses cultural barriers by combining Chinese and Western musical traditions and has been acclaimed as “clearly an accomplished composer” by the King’s Singers. His music has “a strong sense of harmonic integrity underpinning what is ostensibly frenetic writing” and has been described as “wildly inventive…rhythmically charged and captivating” by the King’s Singers and the Robert Avalon International Competition respectively.

Born in 1995 in China, Liu Yizhang has flourished in positions where Western and Eastern cultures blend. After exploration across different genres and various principles, Liu Yizhang’s musical style mixes traditional Chinese philosophies, poetries, and folk tunes with contemporary compositional techniques in the Western tradition. His music is widely performed internationally in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and China. His piano work, Tempestuous Flow, was not only produced and published by RMN Music but also added to the Sound and Music Archive of the British Library. Famous ensembles, orchestras and artists Liu Yizhang has collaborated with include The Brazilian National Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Formalist Quartet, Laurent Estoppey, Charles Anthony Silvestri and many others.

Additionally, prizes Liu Yizhang has received including 2021 RMN Classical Call for Piano Works: Winning Prize, 2022 Golden Key Composition Competition: Second Prize, the King’s Singers New Music: Honorable Mention, 2019 Lin Yao Ji International Competition for Solo Violin Composition in Chinese Style: Honorable Mention, amongst many others. He has also received fellowships from organizations and institutions including Melody of Yangtze River: 2020 World Famous Music Institution Exchange Performance Season, Sao Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, the International Music Festival of the Adriatic, soundSCAPE Music Festival and others.

Liu Yizhang started pursuing his Doctoral of Musical Arts in Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory in Fall 2020. He attained his Master of Music from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2020 and Bachelor of Music in Composition from Oberlin Conservatory in 2018. His principal composition teachers have included Professors Stephen Hartke, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Yotam Haber, Jesse Jones, Lewis Nielson, Elizabeth Ogonek, Aaron Helgeson, Tom Lopez, Paul Rudy, and Du Yong. Liu Yizhang has also served as the conductor for the recording of Pear Blossom, which is published in the 2020 Contemporary Chamber Work Volume 2 by RMN Classical, and the Music Director of Eyes and Mind – China Contemporary Synesthesia Experimental Arts Exhibition in Shenzhen, China in 2015.