Concert 1: Sunday, May 9, 2026 | 5:00 pm

Thelma Schnitzer Hall

Program Notes

Coming and Vanishing (2026)

ZHAO Yixuan

Coming and Vanishing is an Audiovisual work for solo bamboo flute and electronics that explores a transient and unstable phenomenon.

The flute interacts closely with the electronic layer through air sounds, breath tones, and extended techniques. Pitch and noise are deliberately blurred, allowing the instrument to function not as a melodic foreground but as a fluctuating presence. The electronic part is primarily built from processed human whispers and breaths, materials detached from linguistic meaning. Through subtle layering and diffusion, the voices lose semantic clarity and become abstract sonic matter. Acoustic and electronic sound exist in a continuous state of mutual negotiation, shaping and destabilizing one another in real time.

The visual draws inspiration from traditional Chinese landscape painting while incorporating a surrealist sensibility. Through gradual transformations of light and shadow, the imagery reveals and amplifies microscopic details within the sound. Rather than illustrating the music, the visuals function as a parallel perceptual layer, extending the listening experience into a spatial and visual field.

Sound and visual are not merely layered media, but revealing a dynamic process, existing only within the persistent tension between appearance and disappearance, presence and loss, immediacy and dissolution.

ZHAO Yixuan

ZHAO Yixuan is a composer, a lecturer at the Electronic Music Center, Department of Music AI and Music Information Technology, Central Conservatory of Music, China, and a visiting researcher at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. She worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Central Conservatory of Music.

She has been dedicated to exploring the practice of digital audio and artificial intelligence in music composition and collaborating with performers to search for more possibilities in technological performance environments. Her composition spans interactive music, electroacoustic music, contemporary music, and new media art. Her works have won numerous awards and performed in many international conferences and concerts, including NIME, ICMC, Ars Electronica, TENOR, Summit on Music Intelligence, Journées d’Informatique Musicale, TiMP, IRCAM Forum, China-UK International Music Festival, Nottingham New Music Festival, MUSICACOUSTICA-BEIJING, Beijing Youth Arts Festival, WOCMAT Taiwan, among others.

Visual Designer: WU Shuangqi

Shuangqi (/’su:ki/) is an intermedia creator and visual-physical experimenter engaged in visual media, contemporary theatre, physical improvisation, visual design, sound, audio-visual live performance, photography, editing, etc.

Shuangqi’s creations are mainly based on physical experience, deconstructing and visually outputting the body and external information, intending to explore the assembly, pattern, motivation and form in the algorithms of flesh and behaviour, to gain extension in perversion and mutation. Having worked as a dancer, she favours a somatic arrangement of cues, constructing a view of artworks with theatre-like thinking and concepts, using the flesh and dissecting a passive way out of the body.

Shuangqi’s creations include “Disembodied Zone,” “Flesh Surrogate,” “Theatre Series,” “Greenhouse Series,” “The Circle Line,” “Auto-Rendering,” etc. She also engaged as a multi-disciplinary creator and collaborator in various projects in multiple venues such as theatre, city landmark, art space and media.

Bamboo flute performer: WANG Pinyu

WANG Pinyu is a bamboo flute performer and graduate student at the Central Conservatory of Music. Recipient of the highest award (Wenhua Award) in the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan category at the 7th National Youth Traditional Instrumental Music Education and Teaching Achievement Exhibition. In 2022, published the Hulusi original music collection Lusheng Love. Named “Ethnic Music Star” in the Professional Youth A Group at the inaugural “National Rhyme Cup” Xiao Competition.

Train of Thoughts (2017)

Kyong Mee Choi

Train of Thoughts is based on the experience of sitting on a train and having various thoughts evoked by the sounds of the environment. In the piece, the initial train sound morphs into various sonic gestures that represent thoughts. Over time, thoughts are intruded upon and triggered by ambient sounds such as a siren and city noise. Train of Thoughts describes how our mind travels through our present moment via sonic events.

Kyong Mee Choi

Kyong Mee Choi, composer, organist, painter, poet, and visual artist, received several prestigious awards and grants, including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, John Donald Robb Musical Trust Fund Commission, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award, Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo among others. Her music was published at Ablaze, CIMESP (São Paulo, Brazil), SCI, EMS, ERM media, SEAMUS, and Détonants Voyages (Studio Forum, France). She is the Director of Music Composition at Roosevelt University in Chicago, where she teaches composition. Samples of her works are available at http://www.kyongmeechoi.com.

Sound Legacy (传响) — For Electronic Music (2025)

Yuan Zhou

This work explores the fusion of traditional folk music and contemporary electronic practices, seeking new pathways for the preservation and transformation of Northern Shaanxi folk traditions. Through a multidimensional approach to sound, the piece incorporates raw recordings of regional folk songs and Chinese Guzheng performances, which are then extensively processed and reinterpreted using electronic techniques. By integrating these elements within a contemporary sonic framework, the work aims to establish a dynamic dialogue between tradition and modernity, allowing both to coexist and evolve organically.

Yuan Zhou

Yuan Zhou is an associate professor and master’s supervisor, currently serving as the head of the Electronic Music Department at the Contemporary Music Department of Xi’an Conservatory of Music. She received her master’s degree in electronic music composition from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2009. Her work Colored Glaze won the Grand Prize at the 35th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition in 2008.

Dust Storm (2025)

Zouning Anne Liao

This fixed media composition is inspired by the chaotic energy and fine particulate detail of a dust storm. Dust storms are violent, mesmerizing phenomena—walls of wind-borne earth that reshape both landscape and perception. This composition seeks to capture the duality of their nature: the immense, chaotic energy they unleash and the microscopic precision of the dust itself, suspended in turbulence. On a metaphorical level, the piece explores erosion—not just of land, but of memory, identity, and form. As with a dust storm, boundaries blur. Sound becomes sediment. Structure is worn away until only traces remain. Originally written for the seventh order ambisonics—64 channels—this piece can be mixed down to whichever configuration best fits the concert hall.

Zouning Anne Liao

Zouning Anne Liao is a composer, sound designer, and multimedia artist from Guangdong, China. Her music reflects her fascination with natural phenomena, cycles of life, the materiality of sound, and the evolving relationship between humans, technology, and the environment. Her works have been showcased at international festivals such as IRCAM ManiFeste & Forum Workshop (France), Sound/Image Festival (UK), ICMC, Espacios Sonoros (Argentina), SEAMUS (USA), among other international venues. She holds a master’s degree in Computer Music Composition from Indiana University. Now based in Chicago, Zouning is in her second year of a PhD program in Music Composition and Technology at Northwestern University.

Openings (2022)

Liann J. Kang

Like in drawings, a sound material not only exists in the moment but sometimes hints at the path it can be heading next. The direction is derived from very subtle traits of the sound—not only the texture, gestural aspect, degree of tension but also implied visuality and expectation generated from it. While working on my fixed media piece, Openings, I followed the invisible but tangible threads that the sound materials were organically engendering and chased the sonic sceneries that emerged afterward.

Liann J. Kang

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Liann J. Kang is a composer and vocalist who writes music that brings out imagery and sensory responses that can be stimulated uniquely through the time-based auditory experience of music, inspired by her experience of synesthesia. Kang is interested in the vulnerable, fragile, fleeting, and intangible qualities of “in between” feelings and emotions, manifesting from transitory phenomena such as nostalgia and foreignness. She pays close attention to the qualities of everyday sounds around us, especially their influence as familiar objects to shape listeners’ perception of space—its physical, acoustical, and imaginary aspects. Kang has been awarded a 2026 MacDowell Fellowship, 2025 Tanglewood Music Center Composition Fellowship, 2025 ICMC Best Student Music Award, First Prize of the 2024 Sweetwater/SEAMUS Commission Award, and 2024 Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship. Her works have featured internationally at events and conferences including SEAMUS, MA/IN Festival, EMM, NYCEMF, ICMC, CHIMEFest at University of Chicago, Sound Spaces in Malmö, Sweden. Her primary teachers have included Philippe Hurel, Yan Maresz, João Pedro Oliveira, Eli Fieldsteel, and has previously had masterclasses led by Kaija Saariaho and John Harbison. Currently, Kang is a doctoral candidate in composition-theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Biska (2024)

Luyao Tian

Biska is an applied electronic music piece rooted in the traditional culture of the Tujia ethnic group and integrated with modern electronic music production techniques. “Biska” means “local people” or “natives” in the Tujia language, and the work is titled as such to deeply explore and acoustically represent the primitive power and mysterious realm contained in the shamanism and sacrificial rituals of this ancient ethnic group’s spiritual world.

The entire project is completed in the Cubase host platform for the main creation, arrangement, and composition, fully utilizing its powerful MIDI and audio processing capabilities. The subsequent human voice recording, fine editing, and overall mixing are completed in Pro Tools to ensure the highest standard of audio quality and spatial layering.

This work is not only a tribute to a cultural heritage but also a search for a unique “modern Primitivism” sound expression of Eastern mysticism within the global electronic music context.

Luyao Tian

Luyao Tian is currently pursuing an M.A. in Computer Music Composition at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, studying under Associate Professor Jian Feng. Her research interests span computer music composition and real-time interactive systems, spatial audio and immersive auditory experience design, the integration of electronic music with traditional Chinese musical elements, and music AI with algorithmic composition. Her compositions have been recognized with awards both in China and abroad. She was awarded the second prize in the Original Music Song Composition Category of the University Music Creation Competition (Central China Region) in 2025. Her work Avoiding Shadows and Concealing Oneself was awarded the Golden Bell Award in the Instrumental Works Category at the 2023 Hubei Music Golden Bell Award Competition.

The Vanishing Realm (2025)

Feihong Yu

The Vanishing Realm is a four-channel fixed-media electroacoustic work inspired by the ancient Chinese tale “The Peach Blossom Spring” (桃花源记), a story of a hidden utopia glimpsed only once.

In the original text, a fisherman discovers a secluded valley filled with blossoming peach trees—peaceful, harmonious, and untouched by time. When he tries to return, however, he can never find the path again. The world exists somewhere between reality and dream, revealed only once and then lost.

This work translates that imagery and atmosphere into sound while offering a personal interpretation of the story. Like the fisherman, listeners are invited to briefly enter this dreamlike space and experience its mystery, fleeting beauty, and sense of disappearance.

Feihong Yu

Feihong Yu is pursuing her master’s degree in Classical Voice and Computer Music Composition at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she is expanding her artistic practice of opera performance and technology-based composition. Her creative work includes compositions for voice and live electronics, interactive dance works using posture-capture systems, and electroacoustic sound design.

Feihong previously earned her bachelor’s degree in classical voice from the Manhattan School of Music. As a performer, she has sung leading roles in operas throughout Italy and Germany and appeared in concerts across New York City and her hometown of Dalian, China. In addition to her performance and compositional pursuits, she has extensive experience in music production, having worked as an audio technician specializing in recording, mixing, and mastering.

A Poem for Little Things (2025)

Chung Eun Kim

This piece was originally composed while raising twin babies under the age of two, a time that significantly shaped my musical environment. It draws on the sounds of the toy instruments they played with, transforming everyday sonic objects into compositional material. Some passages evoke a childlike intimacy, while others develop into more energetic, percussive textures.

Chung Eun Kim

Chung Eun Kim is a graduate of the PhD in Composition at Rutgers University. Dr. Kim also holds degrees from the New England Conservatory in Boston and Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. Her doctoral thesis dealt with musical silence in the works of Cage, Takemitsu and Sciarrino. As a composer, her musical background and interest come from both Western and non-Western traditions, often drawing on elements of jazz and pop. Her music has been performed by the Flux String Quartet, Freya String Quartet, Beo String Quartet, New Contemporary Performance Group, Englewinds, S.E.M. ensemble, Contemporary Music Society in Seoul, The Korean Society of Women Composers, and Daegue MBC Symphony Orchestra, and at events such as ICMC, SICMF, NSEME, NYCEMF, Bowling Green State University Conference in Music, Le Poisson Rouge, New Music on the Point, Carnegie Halls’ Weill Recital Hall, Dynamic Festival, Upbeat Festival, and Charlotte New Music Festival.

The Throat of the Earth (2026)

Ye Peng

This work recreates a complete Mongolian shamanic ritual through electronic music. Following the “slow-medium-fast” progression of the ceremony, the music begins with throat singing and sounds of nature, builds a trance-like dance atmosphere with ritual drum rhythms and animal calls, and culminates in an intense rhythmic climax—forming an auditory entreaty for divine blessing. By fusing traditional elements with modern electronic soundscapes, it creates an immersive ritual experience.

Ye Peng

Master’s candidate in Computer Music and Composition. Class of 2025 Wuhan Conservatory of Music supervised by Prof. Xia Sunhuimei. She is a member of the Electronic Music Society of the Chinese Musicians’ Association. Peng’s main research interests include electronic music composition, creation of electronic music with visual imagery, and audiovisual interactive creation using TouchDesigner. Her creative works cover acousmatic electronic music, mixed electronic music, new media electronic music, and other related genres.

Solitary Temple I (2025)

Yiting Shao

A misty landscape of rain, forest, moss, and a solitary temple forms the poetic backdrop of this work, inspired by Wild Grass 《野草》 by Lu Xun (鲁迅), particularly “Gravestone Inscription” 《墓碣文》, in which he writes: “I dreamt that I was standing face to face with a gravestone…” The irrevocable past has already vanished, like being in a solitary temple—immersed in profound stillness and darkness, engaged in inner struggle and renunciation. Centered on the traditional Chinese instrument guzheng, the piece explores extended techniques—striking, bowing, playing near the bridge, and moving the bridges—to generate its sonic material. These sounds are sampled and processed in Max/MSP, forming an interactive audiovisual environment, with visuals generated using Jitter.

Yiting Shao

YiTing Shao, born in Hebei, China, in 2000, Received a bachelor’s degree in Violin Performance from Communications University of Zhejiang in China, and completed a Master’s degree in Composition at Dankook University in Korea. Currently pursuing a Doctorate in Electro-acoustic and Instrumental Composition at Hanyang University. Her work was presented at the 2025 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Boston 2025.

Luminous Hush (2024)

Sunhuimei Xia

Luminous Hush unfolds as an ethereal musical illusion rooted in ancient echoes, weaving timeless sonic mystique with contemporary digital craft. It draws listeners into a liminal soundscape where antiquity and innovation converge, crafting an otherworldly auditory experience that feels both primal and futuristic. The piece thrives on deliberate contrast: free-flowing, liberal rhythms collide with rigid, conservative patterns; distant, reverberant tones blend with intimate, close-up textures; elongated sonic phrases intersect with crisp, short fragments. These opposing elements are carefully layered to evoke a persistent sense of instability and tension, keeping the audience suspended in a state of quiet unease and wonder.

Sunhuimei Xia

Sunhuimei Xia, Associate Professor of Art and Technology at Wuhan Conservatory of Music’s Composition Department, Dr. Xia holds a master’s from Johns Hopkins University and a Doctorate from the University of Oregon (U.S.). Mentored by renowned composers Jian Feng, Jian Liu, Geoffrey Wright and Jeffrey Stolet. As central and western China’s first DMA in data-driven musical instrument composition and performance, this accomplished composer focuses on computer music creation and music-technology integration, with core interests in interactive data-driven instruments, algorithmic composition and data sonification. Honored as a Music Entrepreneurship and Innovation Talent by the Ministry of Culture and an Outstanding Young and Middle-Aged Literary and Art Talent by Hubei Federation of Literary and Art Circles, her works won the Hubei Golden Bianzhong Music Award, with over 10 pieces showcased at top global events including ICMC, ISMIR, NIME, SMC, SEAMUS, NYCEMF, EMM, IRCAM, WOCMAT and Musicacoustica-Beijing.

She released China’s first DVD album of data-driven instrument works, published by Shanghai Music Publishing House and Shanghai Literature & Art Audio-Video Electronic Publishing House. She guided students to secure 20+ domestic and international awards, leads provincial projects and participates in the Ministry of Education’s Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Fund Project, driving music-technology innovation.