June 2025: Composer of the Month

Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976. His father, who is also a composer, began teaching him composition and piano when he was six years old. He received both traditional and Western education at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Huang Ruo’s vibrant and inventive musical voice 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 music has been premiered and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, LA Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Royal Danish Opera, Asko/Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, and conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Marin Alsop, Andrew Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, and James Conlon. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the Juilliard School. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty member at the Mannes School of Music in New York and is the artistic director and conductor of Ensemble FIRE.  He was selected as a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States–China Relations in 2006.  His music is published by Project Schott New York and Ricordi London.

View compositions by Huang Ruo