Du Yun

• Name — Du Yun • Native Name — 杜韵 • Birthplace — Shanghai, China • Genre — classical, Avant-garde, experimental, punk, crossover, folk, electronic, alternative rock, pop, World • Occupation — * composer • musician • performance artist • producer • Years Active — 2000–present • Label — Modern Sky, National Sawdust Tracks, Oxingale, Pentatone, New Focus Records, Deutsche Grammophon • Associated Acts — International Contemporary Ensemble, Ok Miss • Website — https: channelduyun.com

• Showflag — cp • S — 杜韵 • T — 杜韻 • P — Dù Yùn 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. Du Yun was named as one of the 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2018, and received a 2019 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition for her work Air Glow. In its decade review, UK's Classic FM listed Du Yun's winning of the Pulitzer as No. 6 in "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever." Rolling Stone Italia named her as one of the women composers who defined the 2010s. In 2024, Du Yun was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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, Chen Sheng, 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.

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. She is the Professor of Composition at Peabody. In 2017, she was also appointed as the distinguished visiting professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. 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). She also leads her band Ok Miss, which exists as both rock band and chamber music ensemble. 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 was awarded top 38 Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation. In 2023 Du Yun was awarded the Harvard Centennial Medal. This is the highest honor the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) bestows. She was the youngest recipient of this award’s history. The Centennial Medal acknowledges alumni who have made outstanding contributions to society, the roots of which are based in their graduate education. Du Yun lives and works from New York City. She uses her whole name, Du Yun, not Du, for professional and personal uses. • Illustration — Du Yun at rehearsal

• Illustration — Du Yun at Daguan theatre, at Shanghai Project opening Du 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."

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. "I want to demystify Asian culture. I want to question who owns the culture and bring together the divisions we have in society," she told the New York News Channel PIX11. 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. When All About Jazz covered her keynote speech for the European Jazz Conference in 2019, Ian Patterson wrote:

• In Our Daughter's Eyes • Sweet Land • Angel's Bone • Zolle with A Cockroach's Tarantella

• Slow Portraits • Kraken • Mantichora • Hundred Heads • Impeccable Quake

• Where We Lost Our Shadows (2019) • Thirst (2018) • Ears Of The Book Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra (2024)

• Vicissitudes No. 1 • by of... Lethean • Your eyes are not your eyes • Air Glow • A Few Stops on the N Train • A Few Stops on the 7 Train • Tattooed in Snow • Every Grass A Spring

• give me back my fingerprints • The Veronica • Run in a Graveyard • When a Tiger Meets a Rosa Rugosa • An Empty Garlic • San • Dinosaur Scar • Ixtab, 10pm

• How are you doing, the future that has never left • How are you doing, the past that comes around the corner • Run

• Dim Sum Warriors (book by Colin Goh)

• 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)

• Disruption as Rapture • Parallax • Singing Suns • The Last Post

Notable collaborations include with visual artist Shahzia Sikander, flutist Claire Chase, librettist Royce Vavrek, and pipa player Wu Man.