Yu-Hui Chang

Latest releases

About this artist

Award-winning composer Yu-Hui Chang has written a wide range of music that compels and resonates with professional musicians and audiences alike. Her music is characterized by energy, precision, ingenious effects, and vibrant colors – all in the pursuit of a deep connection with humanity. She strives to break through cultural and stylistic boundaries, and to take an inclusive view of musical diversity. This attitude is manifested in the multifaceted quality of her compositional output, and the stylistic fluidity in her writing.

Yu-Hui is the recipient of two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and commissions from Fromm, Koussevitzky, Barlow, Naumburg, and Meet The Composer (now New Music USA). She has also been recognized by the Aaron Copland Award, Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, and the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan (Taiwanese government agency).

Her compositions have been performed across continents in the Netherlands, Italy, UK, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and throughout the U.S. to critical. Among the numerous commissions she has received are those from BMOP, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, Boston Musica Viva, Alea III, Volti, Ju Percussion Group, Monadnock Music Festival, Arts Council Korea, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center of Taiwan, and many others.

A native of Taiwan, Yu-Hui began her intensive music training in piano, voice, and music theory at the age of six, and started seriously pursuing composition as a career at the age of fourteen. She came to the United States in 1994 and received her graduate degrees from Brandeis University (Ph.D.) and Boston University (MM). After teaching at UC Davis for seven years, Yu-Hui moved back to the east coast and joined the Brandeis composition faculty in 2006. As an exponent of contemporary music performance, Yu-Hui previously served as a co-artistic director of Empyrean Ensemble and Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble. Collectively she curated more than seventy concerts.