Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His 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.” Huang Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. His music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Asko/Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta. He has written 8 operas including M. BUTTERFLY, PARADISE INTERRUPTED, and AN AMERICAN SOLDIER, which was named one of the best classical music events in 2018 by The New York Times.  He served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976 - the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s when China was opening its gate to the Western world, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. He earned a BM degree from the Oberlin College, and MM and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music.  Huang Ruo’s music is published by Ricordi. (www.huangruo.com)

Wang Danhong holds a doctorate in composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), where she serves as a professor of composition. She is recognized as one of the most dynamic young composers in contemporary China, having received prestigious honors including the Wenhua Award, Gold Prize for Young Composers at the Chinese Music Forum, and Best Original Work at the CCTV National Chinese Instrumental Music Competition. Wang’s music is known for its emotional richness, lyrical melodies, and expansive style. She composes across genres; major compositions include Forever Shandan, Ode to the Sun, and Impressions of Shanxi for Chinese orchestra; The Lighthouse and The Yangtze South for symphony orchestra; the symphonic choral work A Vision of Jing- Jin-Ji; and the ballet Like Flowers.

Shaosheng Li is the Composer in residency of China National Symphony Orchestra. He is the music director for the Wuxi Symphony Orchestra and the Guangxi Symphony Orchestra. Shaosheng Li is a member of the Chinese Musicians Association and the Composition and Composition Theory Society. He studied composition at the Central Conservatory of Music, Juilliard School, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is the first composer from Central Conservatory to be admitted to Juilliard School.

The music of Shaosheng Li is representative of the young generation of Chinese composers. His works cover various genres, including symphony, chamber music, and opera, etc. He has received numerous awards, including the China Golden Bell Award, the “Times Symphony” from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, the only commission prize at the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, and the first prize in song collection from the Ministry of Education and the General Administration of Sport, and so forth. He was also one of Forbes China 100 outstanding overseas returnees in 2022.

Shaosheng Li’s music exhibits a distinctive personal style, blending both Eastern and Western musical languages with a strong artistic appeal. His works have been performed around the world, including the Carnegie Chinese Music Festival, the New York Chinese Contemporary Music Festival, the Australia Chinese Music Festival, the Iceland Modern Music Festival, the Thailand International Composition Music Festival, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Shenzhen International Music Festival, Beijing Fringe Festival, the Tsingtao International Music Festival. 

Zhou Long is internationally recognized for creating a unique body of music that brings together the aesthetic concepts and musical elements of East and West. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his first opera, Madame White Snake, Dr. Zhou also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the 2012-2013 Elise Stoeger Prize from Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. He has been two-time recipient of commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm Music Foundations, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, and the New York State Council on the Arts. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2015, Zhou Long and Chen Yi both were nominated the 58th Grammy Award. 

Born on July 8, 1953 in Beijing. Zhou Long enrolled in the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1977. Following graduation in 1983, he was appointed composer-in-residence with the China Broadcasting Symphony. He travelled to the United States in 1985 under a fellowship to attend Columbia University, where he studied with Chou Wen-Chung, Davidovsky and Edwards, receiving a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1993. Dr. Zhou is currently Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. 

Recently, he has completed Tsingtao Overture, which awarded China National Arts Fund; Beijing Rhyme - A Symphonic Suite, commissioned by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, a quartet co-commissioned by the Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center, and his first piano concerto Postures co-commissioned by the BBC Proms and Singapore Symphony. In 2013, Zhou Long has composed a whole evening symphonic epic 'Nine Odes' on poems by Qu Yaun for four solo vocalists and orchestra, commissioned by the Beijing Music Festival. Zhou’s music of all genres has been widely performed and recorded, and published by the Oxford University Press and the Shanghai Music Publishing House.