Wang Lu

Alumna (DMA 2012)
Wang Lu

Wang Lu is Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Brown University.

A 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, composer and pianist Wang Lu was born in Xi’an, the ancient capital of China. Being brought up in a musical family with strong Chinese opera and folk music traditions, her works reflect a very natural identification with those influences, through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities. Wang Lu’s works for a variety of Western and Chinese ensembles and orchestras have been performed internationally, by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Orchestre National de Lille, Holland Symfonia, Shanghai National Chinese Orchestra, Taipei Chinese Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Musiques Nouvelles (Belgium), Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal), Phoenix Ensemble (Basel), Beijing New Music Ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento, Momenta Quartet, Columbia University Jazz Band, the Janus Trio, So Percussion, Ensemble Pamplemouse and counter(induction, among others. She has participated in festivals such as the New York Philharmonic Biennale (2014), the Cresc Biennale in Frankfurt for new music (2013), Gaudeamus Music Week (2010 finalist), Tanglewood Music Center (2009), Cabrillo Music Festival (2010), Pacific Music Festival (2008), Takefu International Music Festival (2010), Centre Acanthes (2007), Bowling Green New Music Festival (2007), and the Beijing Modern (2004). She won the first prize at Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s Young Composers Forum in 2010 and shared the Tactus International Young Composers Orchestra Forum Award in 2008. She was selected for a Tremplin commission by IRCAM/Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2010, the International Composition Seminar with the Ensemble Modern in 2012, and has also received two ASCAP Morton Gould awards. She received her doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University in 2012, after graduating with highest honors from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music in 2005. Her composition teachers have included Fred Lerdahl, Tristan Murail, George Lewis, and Chou Wen-chung.

Bio courtesy of her website.

Dissertation
Flowing Waters and the Flow of Time: Guan Pinghu's Interpretation of Flowing Waters
Columbia Degrees: 
DMA, Composition
2011