Born in Banciao, Taipei Taiwan, I started playing the piano at the age of five, and decided to study composition with the encouragement of my piano teacher at age fourteen. Before coming to the United States in 1996, I graduated summa cum laude from the National Taiwan Academy of Arts. I received my Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music, where I studied with professors David Loeb and Jennifer Higdon. In 2003, I received my Mater’s degree and Artist Diploma from Yale University, where I studied with professors Ezra Laderman, Martin Bresnick and Roberto Sierra. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University, where I study with professors Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth and Anthony Kelley. I have composed music for a variety of musical media and choreography. For the last several years, the incorporation of materials from my Taiwanese background has been a special interest of mine. On a more theoretical level, my recent work loosely adapts concepts of twelve tone tonality and musical set theory to Chinese melodies and musical elements. I have been gratified to receive a numerous of awards and honors for my compositional endeavors. In 1999, my Dinkey Bird won the Maxfield Parrish composition contest and was the subject of a feature in Philadelphia Inquirer. Shui Diao Ge To, composed for the 2004 Milestones Festival received a 2005 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award. In 2006, Huan for solo harp was the winner of the Composition Contest for the 7th USA International Harp Competition and was selected in the repertoire for the harp competition. Huan was introduced by Sonja Inglefield in an article in the fall 2006 issue of World Harp Congress Review. I was also invited to conduct a composer’s forum in the competition and was interviewed for a documentary, which will be televised on PBS in spring 2008. In 2007, my Fantasy on Wang Bao Chuan, commissioned by Taiwan’s Evergreen Symphony orchestra, was selected for American Composers Orchestra’s annual Underwood New Music reading and also received an honorable mention by Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. A few weeks ago I won first prize at the Charlotte Civic Orchestra Composition Competition and my Hard Roads in Shu will be performed again in May 2008. I have also received the first prize in the National Taiwan Academy of Art Composition Competition, the Prism Quartet Student Commission Award, the Renée B. Fisher Foundation Composer Award, and the William Klenz Prize.
My compositions have been performed in various places, including Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, Max M. Fisher Music Center, Yale University, Duke University and The Fontainebleau Schools in France. My recent activities include collaboration with choreographer Keith Thompson, and new work for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Among Gardens for solo piano was included in Natalie Zhu’s new album Image. Excerpts of my compositions (Hard Roads in Shu and Among Gardens) can be heard online at http://music.duke.edu/profiles/profile_chia-yu_hsu.php.