BIOS
The Chinese American composer Kevin Xing Ru Li (b.1997) writes dark, lush, and sensual music that yearns for light and hope. His music frequently plays on the View from the Edge series concert and the Midwest Composer Symposium.
He sees music as a metaphorical tool to convey and reflect the human psychological condition of the present day. Aside from Mahlerian romanticism, his musical language has a strong sense of his ethnic and cultural background of Chinese festivity, military march tunes, and American Jazz traditions. As a cross-cultural example, his solo flute work, The Last Fenghuang, made it to the Finalist of Classic Pure Vienna International Music Composition in 2019.
The sound of an orchestra has always enchanted him since a young boy. Grew up in an artistic family of Chinese immigrants in Queens, NY, he was frequently exposed to the world of the western musical tradition. Soon after, he moved to Beijing, China, to reacquaint his ancestral roots.
An early starter in piano and clarinet, he won multiple national and international youth competitions during his teens in China. He started to tap into the world of composition when he participated in the local youth wind orchestra/ marching band, arranging tunes to play with his buddies. However, formal music composition studies come much later in his young adulthood. He earned his Bachelor of Music in commercial production and Master of Music in composition at College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (CCM). Currently, he is pursuing his DMA in CCM, studying under Award-winning composer Douglas Knehans.
Besides concert music, he also seeks to unify the world of art music and commercial music. His score for indie film Margie’s Christmas Eve was recently awarded Florence Film Award: Best Original Score, Tuscany, Italy, 2021, and made it to Finalist of Best Soundtrack: Oniors Film Awards – New York, NY, 2021.
