Du Yun (traditional Chinese: 杜韻, simplified Chinese: 杜韵) is a Chinese-born American composer, performer, musician and performance artist. She won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Angel's Bone, with libretto by Royce Vavrek.
Early life and education
Du Yun was born in
Shanghai, China. She began studying piano at the age of four, attending the primary school Shanghai Conservatory of Music for piano. She studied composition at the middle school Shanghai Conservatory of Music with Deng Erbo. Du Yun later went to the United States for college and graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in composition, under
Randolph Coleman, and received a Ph.D. in music composition from Harvard University with
Bernard Rands and
Mario Davidovsky.
On her earlier years growing up in Shanghai, Du Yun recounted, in her contribution to WQXR, that neither of her parents went to college and both were factory workers in China.
When Du Yun studied in junior high school in Shanghai, she collected cassette tapes from singer Faye Wong, Bobby Chen, Dou Wei, Pink Floyd and Sinéad O'Connor. She counts Dou Wei and Faye Wong among the Chinese pop musicians who have had the most influence on her musical life. She credits filmmakers Wong Kar-Wai and Quentin Tarantino as some of the major influences on her style.
When she studied in high school, she spent pocket money on CDs that had impactful covers. Pink Floyd, Cocteau Twins, Björk, Sinead O'Connor, and Kraftwerk entered her world all at once. She indulged in Krautrock and psychedelic rock.
During her first year of college, British band Portishead released a new album, and Du Yun fell into the world of trip hop. Her psychedelic style was later used in many of her works, and in 2012, she released her first studio album, Shark in You, which featured a variety of styles, from experimental dance music to cabaret and jazz electronic music.
Career
Du Yun won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera
Angel's Bone in 2017, making her the first Asian woman to win this prize in music.
The opera's production in Hong Kong in 2018 won the best of the performances of the year by the
South China Morning Post.
In 2006, Du Yun joined the composition faculty at the State University of New York-Purchase. In 2017, she joined the composition faculty at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
From 2014 to 2018, Du Yun was the Artistic Director of the MATA Festival in New York City.
An avid performer, Du Yun's engagements include the 2018 Lahore Biennial (Pakistan), the 2012 Guangzhou Art Triennial (Guangzhou Opera House, China), the National Academy Museum (USA), the inaugural Shanghai Project (China).
In 2020, China's leading record label, Modern Sky, announced its three-year record deal with Du Yun.
The Vilcek Foundation awarded her the Vilcek Prizes in Music, for recognizing immigrants who have made lasting contributions to American society.
Du Yun lives and works from New York City. She uses her whole name, Du Yun, not Du, for professional and personal uses.
Compositions
Her works include compositions for solo instruments, electroacoustic music,
chamber music,
orchestral music,
opera,
indie pop,
punk rock,
theatre,
oral tradition, sound installations, and
performance art pieces. Du's works have been performed internationally in venues such as
Carnegie Hall, the Guangzhou Opera House, the
Salle Pleyel Paris, the
Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Escola de Música do Estado in São Paulo, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in Germany, and London's
Southbank Centre. She has written for the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the
LA Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, as well as solo artists
Hilary Hahn and
Matt Haimovitz.
On April 10, 2017, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her second opera, Angel's Bone.
She is the composer of the musical Dim Sum Warriors, based on a graphic novel and bilingual iPad app series about Kung Fu-fighting dumplings by the Singaporean filmmaker, satirist, and cartoonist Colin Goh and Yenyen Woo.
Her work with the Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrrar, "Where We Lost Our Shadows", is based on a trip that Khaled took with a family of Syrian refugee from Greece to Berlin. The work was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, London's Southbank Centre, the Kennedy Center, American Composers Orchestra and CalPerformances. Its documentary was on the National Geographic's Human Journey series. The work is for three soloists, orchestra and video.
In 2020, her site-specific opera Sweet Land, co-composed with composer Raven Chacon, premiered in LA with the opera company The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon and Cannupa Hanska Luger. Sweet Land is a double-team work, with libretto by Aja Couchois and Douglas Kearney. The Los Angeles Times named it a best classical music moment in 2020, a parable of, and fantasia on, manifest destiny.
Du Yun's concert music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc.
Performing artist
Yun's performing persona on stage has been called "utterly extraordinary, unrestrained performance."
Du Yun leads the band Ok Miss. According to The New Yorker, "the one predictable thing about Du Yun … is her unpredictability. Dig deeper, though, and you can sense the conjoined strands of curiosity and compassion that run through everything she makes. On the first two nights of her Stone residency, her art-pop band, OK Miss, ventures through breathy Chinese pop, seductive trip-hop, and metallic skronk."
Visual art
Du Yun has done works for the Guangzhou Triennial,
The Shanghai Project,
Cordoba Contemporary Arts Center,
and the
Sharjah Biennial.
Social work
Du Yun is an advocate for women, racial equality and social justice. In an interview with
NPR on gender in classical music, she said: "I think this is the issue — larger and deeper than the debate of discrimination at hand. Any sustainable and viable career paths cannot and should not depend on a few people's luck."
Speaking to
Foreign Policy on art's power in politics, she said: "A lot of times politics, global issues, are very black and white... There is a place for that, but it's also fantastic to have art side by side, from different viewpoints open for interpretations."
Du Yun founded and curated the Pan Asia Sounding Festival at National Sawdust in March 2018, as part of the Spring Revolution.
Du Yun started a global initiative, FutureTradition, to advocate oral tradition in music and promote their cross-regional collaborations. The works involve many collaborations across regions.
Critical reception
Du Yun is regarded as a "leading force on the New York Scene,"
and "one of China's leading young composers."
Her onstage performing persona has been described as "adventurously eclectic" and "an indie diva with avant garde edge"
by
The New York Times. She has been selected by
NPR as one of the 100 most influential young composers under 40 in 2011.
She was named one of the top 35 female composers in classical music by
The Washington Post.
Her work for
Jennifer Koh,
Give Me Back My Fingerprints, is listed as Top 25 Classical Music Tracks of 2019 by
The New York Times.
Her studio albums
Angel's Bone,
Dinosaur Scar,
A Cockroach's Tarantella and
Sweet Land are listed as Notable Recordings of The Year in 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021 respectively, by
The New Yorker.
In its decade review, UK's Classical FM listed Du Yun's winning of Pulitzer as No. 6 in "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever."
Works
Opera
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In Our Daughter's Eyes
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Sweet Land
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Angel's Bone
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Zolle with A Cockroach's Tarantella
Orchestral
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Slow Portraits
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Kraken
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Mantichora
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Hundred Heads
-
Impeccable Quake
Soloist(s) and orchestra
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Where We Lost Our Shadows (2019)
-
Thirst (2018)
-
Ears Of The Book Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra (2024)
Chamber music
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Vicissitudes No. 1
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by of... Lethean
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Your eyes are not your eyes
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Air Glow
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A Few Stops on the N Train
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A Few Stops on the 7 Train
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Tattooed in Snow
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Every Grass A Spring
Solo with or without electronics
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give me back my fingerprints
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The Veronica
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Run in a Graveyard
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When a Tiger Meets a Rosa Rugosa
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An Empty Garlic
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San
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Dinosaur Scar
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Ixtab, 10pm
Performance art
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How are you doing, the future that has never left
-
How are you doing, the past that comes around the corner
-
Run
Musical
Theatre
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Love in a Fallen City, 傾城之戀, 2021 in Mandarin (written by Eileen Chang directed by Timmy Yip 葉錦添 )
-
Writing in Water, 水中之書, 2016 in Mandarin (written/dir by Stan Lai 賴聲川)
-
Kung Fu (written by David Henry Hwang 黃哲倫)
Collaborations with Shahzia Sikander
-
Disruption as Rapture
-
Parallax
-
Singing Suns
-
The Last Post
Discography
- Studio albums
-
Sweet Land (2021, Industry Records)
-
A Cockroach's Tarantella (2020, Modern Sky)
-
: Du Yun, JACK Quartet
-
Dinosaur Scar (2018, Tundra)
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: International Contemporary Ensemble, Du Yun
-
: Air Glow – Grammy Nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, 2019
-
Angel's Bone (2017, VIA Records, label name changed to National Sawdust Tracks in 2017)
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: Lead cast: Abigail Fischer, Kyle Pfortmiller, Jennifer Charles, Kyle Bielfield
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: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street
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: Julian Wachner, conductor
-
: FA Angel's Bone
-
Shark in You (2012, New Focus Recordings), CD, digital and vinyl
-
Shark in You
- Compilations
-
Retrospective (2018, Deutsche Grammophon)
-
: Hilary Hahn, violin
-
Overtures to Bach (2016, Oxingale Records/Pendatone)
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: Matt Haimovitz, 'cello
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: Juno Award Nomination for Classical Album of the Year, 2017
-
Orbit (2015, Oxingale Records/Pendatone)
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: Matt Haimovitz, 'cello
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In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores (2013, Deutsche Grammophon)
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: Hilary Hahn, violin
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: Cory Smythe, piano
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: Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, 2014
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Figment (2009, Oxingale Records)
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: Matt Haimovitz, 'cello
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Aliento (2009, New Focus Recordings)
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: Claire Chase, flute and electronics
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Abandoned Time (2008, New Focus Recordings)
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: International Contemporary Ensemble
Collaborations
Notable collaborations include with visual artist
Shahzia Sikander, flutist
Claire Chase, librettist
Royce Vavrek, and pipa player
Wu Man.
Honors and recognitions
-
2024: Elected Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences
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2023: Centennial Medal, Harvard University
-
2023: Vilcek Prize in Music
-
2022: Creative Capital Award
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2021: Best 2021 New Opera - Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera - Sweet Land
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2021: Asia Society Hong Kong Center – Honoree in Performing Arts
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2021: American Academy in Berlin – Berlin Prize
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2021: Foundation for Contemporary Arts – Music/Sound
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2019: Beijing Music Festival – Artist of the Year
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2019: BraVo International Professional Music Award – Moscow – Best Classical Composition
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2018: Great Immigrants – Carnegie Foundation
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2018: Guggenheim Fellowship
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2017: Pulitzer Prize for Music – Opera Angel's Bone
-
2017: Asian Cultural Council
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2016: New York Foundation for the Arts, Sound, fellow
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2015: Civitella Ranieri Foundation
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2011: Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Elaine Lebenbom Award
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2011: Philadelphia Music Project – Pew Charitable Trusts.
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2009: Rockefeller Foundation – Bellagio
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2008: Chamber Music America
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2007: Fromm Music Foundation
External links
