Chinese-Canadian composer Haotian Yu (余昊田) writes music for soloists, ensemble, live-electronics, field recordings, and Chinese instruments in which strategies of critical composition, cybernetic theory, media ecology and deconstruction address specific political problematics of contemporary Chinese culture and representation. He is Artistic Director of the Beijing-based AIR contemporary music collective and writes on music and critical theory.
In 2023 he is artist-in-residence at the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts), Berlin as a recipient of the Berlin Fellowship. His work prioritizes extended collaborative working methods. Recent and upcoming collaborations in 2023 include music for Ensemble Fons (Germany), Freesound (Canada), and percussionist Michael Murphy (Canada).
His music has been recognized with five SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Awards and has been twice selected by the Canadian section of the ISCM for the World New Music Days.
He studied composition at the HfMDK Frankfurt (DAAD Postgraduate Scholarship) and the Eastman School of Music (BM with highest distinction) with Orm Finnendahl, Michael Reudenbach, Oliver Schneller, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, among others, and served as President for Eastman's student-run new music organization, OSSIA New Music.
Additional guidance has come from Mark Andre, Annesley Black, Oscar Bianchi, Stefano Gervasoni, George Lewis, Liza Lim, Sarah Nemtsov, Stefan Prins, Katharina Rosenberger, Kate Soper, and Rolf Wallin, among others.
His writing is featured on SWR2 and a forthcoming issue of Perspectives of New Music.
Haotian Yu was born in Shanghai; his family originates from Yiwu, Zhejiang province. He spent his formative years in Ottawa, Ontario (located on the unceded, ancestral territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation), where his earliest mentors included Brian Cherney and Steven Gellman. Haotian Yu is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
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