The Grawemeyer Award is the world's top honor for musical composition. Recipients include John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen and John Corigliano. This year the Grawemeyer went to Chinese-born American composer Lei Liang for his orchestral work, A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams. On February 3, Lei Liang will travel to Albuquerque to premiere a new chamber work as part of the 2020 John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium at the University of New Mexico.
Lei Liang spoke with KUNM from his office at the University of California, San Diego, about his new work for flute and percussion, Lakescape VIII.
In this more complete version of the interview, Lei Liang speaks in detail about his collaboration with the scientists at UC San Diego that resulted in his prize-winning orchestral work. He also makes an intriguing suggestion about how audience members might want to listen to the performance of his new chamber work on February 3 at UNM.
