Liu, Anqi

https://www.anqiliu.com/

Arrived late to composition, mostly teaching herself to compose at age eighteen, with an even later start in formal compositional studies at the age of twenty-three. Despite this late beginning, Liu's music has been widely admired by conductors, musicians, and composers and has been appreciated by diverse audiences. Her music has been performed worldwide through the US to Europe and China. During the years based in New York City, her works were frequently performed by various ensembles in New York City at the prestigious venues such as Le Poisson Rouge, Shapeshifter Lab, the Firehouse Space and others. Pursuing her Ph.D. at UC San Diego, currently studying with Roger Reynolds and Rand Steiger, Liu got the bachelor degree in law and music performance at Xiamen University and an MA in Composition from Rutgers University. Distinct from a conventional compositional training, her music degree included extensive travels throughout the Chinese hinterlands to study the folk music of Chinese minority groups. During her time in America, Liu has focused on avant-garde acoustic experiments and exploring diverse possibilities on timbre and gestures. Her composition teachers include Allain Gaussin, François Paris, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Paul Rudy, Robert Aldridge, Charles Fussell and Gerald Chenoweth. She was the finalist of the International Composition Competition "Maurice Ravel-Italy 2016” and was the First Place for the Chinese Nationalities in category B—Large Chamber category. A symphonic piece of Liu’s won the first prize at XII International Competition DONNE IN MUSICA 2015. She was one of the selected composers with a full scholarship award to attend Ecoles d'Art Américaines de Fontainebleau. She is one of the music presenters at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) 2017. Born in Inner Mongolia, the autonomous region in the north of China, populated by ethnic minorities, as the first composer from the area to pursue a graduate degree in the U.S., Liu is committed to serving as an ambassador for her culture, and for empowering minorities through her work. She hopes to empower other artists from underrepresented ethnic groups.