Ruo Huang

The vibrant and inventive musical voice of Huang Ruo (MM ’02, DMA ’08, composition) draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls dimensionalism. His diverse works span orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance to cross-genre, sound and architectural installation, multimedia, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. His music has been premiered and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, National Polish Radio Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Asko/Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, and conductors Wolfgang Sawallisch, Marin Alsop, Andrew Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, and James Conlon. His opera An American Soldier (with libretto by David Henry Hwang) received its world premiere at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2018 and was named one of the best classical music events in 2018 by the New York Times. His installation opera Paradise Interrupted premiered at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2015 and was performed at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2016, with future tours planned for Europe and Asia. His opera Dr. Sun Yat-Sen premiered at the Santa Fe Opera in 2014. He served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam and was the visiting composer for the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Juilliard. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty member at the Mannes School of Music as well as the composition adviser of Juilliard’s MAP program. He was selected as a young leader fellow by the National Committee on United States-China Relations in 2006. Huang Ruo’s music is published by Ricordi.