Chung-Yuan Yu Chung-Yuan Yu

Chung-Yuan Yu was first introduced to composition by 董怡君. Yu graduated in 2007 from the bachelor’s program of the Department of Music at National Taiwan Normal University, studying with Professor Gordon Shi-Wen Chin, and in 2015 graduated with the highest distinction from the Meisterschule in composition at the Universität der Künste Berlin, studying with Prof. Walter Zimmermann, Anton Safronov and Marc Sabat. Yu is currently a doctoral student in composition at the Central Conservatory of Music under Professor Guo Wenjing, and also teaches at the School of Music and Dance of Quanzhou Normal University in Fujian Province.

Yu won first prize at the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition (2013). In 2014 Yu received a young artist scholarship in Berlin; in January 2019 Yu was selected as a participant in the 4th Chen Qigang Music Workshop at the Gonggeng Academy; in 2019 Yu’s choral work “A Promise to Travel” (旅行的約定) won first prize in the mixed choir category of the first Sing for Love song composition competition; in 2023 Yu’s choral work “Seven Chapters of Life” (人生七章) was recorded on an album by the Taichung Chamber Choir and won Best Composition at that year’s Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music; also in 2023, Yu was lead composer of the psychological opera YU, a project of the Peking University Opera Research Institute; and in 2024 Yu was commissioned composer for the international youth choir festival in Ochsenhausen, Germany.

Jury citation for Best Composition at the 34th Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music: “Through music of powerfully evocative atmosphere, it profoundly conveys the love and reflection the poet distilled from seven major junctures of life.”