Raymond Yiu

Raymond Yiu, born 1973; is a composer, conductor, jazz pianist and music writer.

Born in Hong Kong, he started piano lessons at the age of four.

"Northwest Wind", a quintet for flute, clarinet, harp, viola and double bass to mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, was written for and premiered by Lontano.

He went to England in 1990 and now lives in London.

He began writing music as a teenager, and took up composing again while he was studying at Imperial College.

As a composer, Yiu is mostly self-taught.

He received informal consultations from several composers including Julian Anderson, Lukas Foss and David Sawer.

Distance of the Moon, scored for eleven solo strings, was conducted by Lukas Foss at the Bridgehampton Music Festival 2001.

Three of his works have been shortlisted by the spnm: Tranced Summer-Night, Tranced and Calendar of Tolerable Inventions from Around the World, which was performed by Lontano in 2002, and was subsequently broadcast by BBC Radio 3.

He is the recipient of the spnm’s 2003 George Butterworth Award, a Bliss Trust Composer Bursary 2009, and a scholarship from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he completed a doctorate under the supervision of Julian Anderson.

It was also chosen by Sir Harrison Birtwistle for performance at the 2003 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival with the London Sinfonietta.

Tranced was performed by the Northern Sinfonia at the 2003 Bath Festival and was presented as a dance piece at the Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna, with choreography by Bernd Bienert.

Although it was not selected as one of the three projects to be fully developed following a workshop performance of a selection of scenes in 2003, it attracted the attention of various opera companies, and it was eventually commissioned by Aldeburgh Almeida Opera (with the support of Genesis Foundation) for the 2006 Aldeburgh Festival and the Almeida Opera Season.

Subtitled A Musical Diversion Suggested by the Lives of Chung Ling Soo, The Original Chinese Conjuror was based on the real-life story of William Ellsworth Robinson, a.k.a. Chung Ling Soo, It was an experiment to combine different theatrical protocols into an integrated whole.

It consists of twelve scenes, and scored for five singers and a band of six instrumentalists.

All six performances during its initial run at the Aldeburgh Festival and Almeida Theatre were sold out.

Beyond the Glass, performed and recorded for broadcast by the BBC Singers, was nominated for the BASCA British Composer Awards 2004.

A Whorl of Knowings Dim and Bright was premièred by Andrew Watts at the Cheltenham Music Festival 2004.

Night Shanghai, premièred by Lontano in 2005 in London, has been performed by groups including Concorde Ensemble, Chroma and Ensemble 10/10.

It began life as part of the Genesis Opera Project 2 (GOP2), supported by The Genesis Foundation, The Original Chinese Conjuror, with a libretto by Lee Warren, was one of the six projects chosen for development out of the 200-plus proposals.

2008 saw the premières of Faerie Tales, a Celebrating English Song commission, and Xocolatl, written for the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2008 Panufnik Young Composer Scheme.

Maomao Yü, a quintet scored for piano and four traditional Chinese instruments - erhu, pipa, yangqin and guzheng - was commissioned by LSO UBS Soundscapes, and premiered by Lang Lang (pianist) and the Silk String Quartet with the composer conducting in April 2009.

His second Celebrating English Song commission, "Dead Letters", was premiered in July 2010, and "The Earth and Every Common Sight", for soprano and piano, won the Tracey Chadwell Memorial Prize 2010.

It won the chamber category of the BASCA British Composer Awards 2010.

His first major orchestral work, The London Citizen Exceedingly Injured, written for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was premiered by the orchestra under the baton of Yu Long in January 2013.

It was nominated in the orchestral category of the BASCA British Composer Awards 2013.

A new production of The Original Chinese Conjuror by Teatro Barocco took place at Musikverein in Vienna, April 2013.

"Symphony" for counter-tenor and symphony orchestra - inspired by a poem by Basil Bunting and setting texts by Walt Whitman, Constantine P. Cavafy, Thom Gunn and John Donne - was given its world premiere by Andrew Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner on 25 August 2015 as part of The Proms 2015.

It was commissioned by the BBC.

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation commissioned "The World Was Once All Miracle" for baritone and symphony orchestra - setting of six poems by Anthony Burgess - to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the Manchester-born writer.

The orchestral song cycle was given its world premiere by Roderick Williams, BBC Philharmonic and Michael Francis (conductor) on 4 July 2017 as part of Manchester International Festival 2017.

Its London premiere was given by Williams, BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis on 13 April 2018.

This work was nominated in the large-scale composition category of the 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards.