“I live and form my identity as a contemporary composer from China with a keen and critical eye on the entanglements of politics, culture, society and technology and their consequences. I am looking for a contrasting and multishaped combination of my three major tools: the traditional instruments of the European music and their extended techniques, the critical examination of my Chinese heritage and the current possibilities of electronics. In my music I transform the world of today, its crises and tragedies, as well as its beauty and diversity – there is both screaming criticism and delightful admiration for this world in my music.”

[ Ying WANG  王颖 ]

In her compositions, Ying Wang deals with topics such as environmental pollution, global social grievances, political persecution and our ambivalent relationship with technology. She established herself as a composer who critically reflects and re-thinks chamber and orchestral music. Her musical language is spontaneously giving room to a sensory and bodily experience of her world. It is filled with rhythmic drive, metallic colors and harsh melodic sensitivity. Her first homes in Shanghai and Beijing, as well as her new one in Berlin, form a contrast that is conceptually and musically embedded in her music. Crucial for her work is also cooperation – she is always looking for new links to other media and arts, such as dance, video, digital art, light, visual arts and performance.

Wang is currently working on a series of duo pieces in which the new, digital and global gods of consumption challenge the old ancient gods in a music full of theatrical gestures and humour. Two music theatre pieces are also in the making: A children's music theatre piece about a little girl who learns to hear the world anew after a traumatic loss and a chamber opera that uses AI to explore the worlds of technological intimacy.

Wang has collaborated with numerous orchestras across Europe and Asia, including the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, SWR Symphonieorchester, Gürzenich Orchester, Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, ORF Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Avanti!-Orchestra Helsinki, Philharmonic Orchestra Giessen, Philharmonische Orchestra Heidelberg. He has worked alongside conductors such as Markus Stenz, Brad Lubman, Karen Kamensek, Gregor A. Mayrhofer, Bar Avni, Holly Choe, Muhai Tang, Jonathan Stockhammer, Elias Grandy, Marcus Creed, Johannes Kalitzke and Marin Alsop, as well as with ensembles like Phoenix Basel, Lucerne Festival Ensemble, Quatuor Diotima, Ensemble Resonanz, Ensemble UnitedBerlin, Klangforum Heidelberg, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble LUX:NM, Ensemble PHACE, Ensemble Reflektor and Ensemble KlangforumWien.

In 2013 she was awarded the the Giga-Hertz Prize and the composer prize of the 5th Brandenburg Biennale. In addition to the IEMA scholarship in 2009/10, she received other scholarships from the Experimental Studio of the SWR, the Federal Ministry of Vienna and at the suggestion of Peter Eötvös from the Herrenhaus Edenkoben. In 2014 she won the 35th Irino prize for chamber orchestra in Tokyo. In 2015, Deutschlandfunk invited her as “composer in residence” to the “Forum Neuer Musik” festival in Cologne. In 2017 she received the Heidelberg Artist Prize. In 2020 she received a scholarship from the German Academy in Rome, 2022 she received and 2023 received the international Villa Concordia residence in Bamberg. Further residences in Los Angeles and Germany followed.

Ying WANG completed her composition studies with York Höller, Rebecca Saunders and Johannes Schöllhorn and she studied electronic composition with Michael Beil. In 2010 she completed a master's degree in contemporary music at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts as part of a scholarship from the International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA). In 2012 she took part in the Cursus de Composition et d’informatique musicale / Ircam Paris.

July 2024, Berlin