Wenhui Xie
Composer

Wenhui Xie is one of the emerging young composers and pianists from Beijing, China. Her music contains clear ethnic characteristics as a result of her cultural background and philosophy of life. Wenhui's works cover many genres, including instrumental solos, art songs, choral, chamber, orchestral works, music for dance and film. Her works were awarded prizes in several competitions and have been performed at concerts in China, in the United States and Europe.

Recently, Wenhui's orchestral work To Call Forth has been chosen to be performed during the 2009/2010 academic year by CCM Philharmonia Orchestra. The Percussion Ensemble Composition Contest at The School of Music at The Sam Huston State University has selected her piece A.I.R- for percussion ensemble of 6 players as the contest winner. They will perform it at the Contemporary Music Festival (49th Annual) in April 2009. This piece was premiered at the MusicX Festival in Cincinnati in June 2008. Mrs. Xie performed her work Space-for prepared piano at the 2008 Beijing International Congress on Women in Music in April, and at the MidWest Composers Symposium in Iowa in February 2008. This piece was also awarded a prize at the 2007 Palatino Awards in China. Frederic Rzewski and John Adams said, "It's a great piece, so far from John Cage". In addition, Wenhui composed music for the ballet The Reverie of Baoyu, that was choreographed by Jiang Qi. This work was performed by the Dance China, NYC in September 2006, and in Cincinnati in January 2007. Her Piano Concerto was recorded by the talented young pianist Chongxiao Liu and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. It was also awarded a prize at the Vienna-Chinese New Year Concert in 2006.

As pianist, Wenhui has performed many of her solo piano pieces as well as other composers works in an Ensemble or Symphony Band. She performed her works Space-for prepared piano and Rondo Bell- for piano in China, USA and Croatia. She played Steve Reich's masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians in the Music08 Festival in Cincinnati.

Wenhui received a Bachelors and Masters Degree at the China Conservatory of Music. Presently she is pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Composition, and teaching Orchestration, Intermediate Aural Training class and Composition lessons as a TA at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. She has been invited as a faculty for teaching composition and theory class in AccentX Festival since 2008. Wenhui studies composition with professors WanChun Shi, Joel Hoffman and Michael Fiday, and studies computer music composition with Mara Helmuth.

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