89.9 FM Live From The University Of New Mexico
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Award-Winning Composer Premieres New Work At UNM's Robb Symposium

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 2020John 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.

lei_liang_interview_long_version_final.mp3

Spencer Beckwith reports on the arts for KUNM. For ten years, until March of 2014, Spencer was the producer and host of KUNM's "Performance New Mexico," a weekday morning arts program that included interviews with musicians, writers and performers. Spencer is a graduate of the acting program at the Juilliard School, and, before moving to New Mexico in 2002, was for many years a professional actor based in New York City.