BIOGRAPHY

Yihan Wang, a composer based in Cambridge, UK, meticulously sculpts sound to explore the delicate interplay between the vibrating world and the spiritual journeys woven beyond. 

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Wang is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at Cambridge University under Prof. Marta Gentilucci. He received a Master of Music in composition from Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was mentored by Prof. Roger Redgate. Wang attained his Bachelor of Arts in composition at the Central Conservatory of Music, studying under the guidance of Professors Min Xiang (向 民) and Fuhong Shi (史 付 红).

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Wang crafts music across all scales, from solo instruments to large ensembles and electroacoustic music. He occasionally incorporates image-based materials into his compositions, drawing on his parallel practice of fine-art photography. Wang’s views his interdisciplinary output as  fundamentally (western art music) compositional, centered on the notion of listening - with a foundational canvas: time.

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Wang’s musical ethos reflects his extensive exploration of varied styles and approaches. He places high value on individuation and the development of a unique musical language. While his sonic signature is shaped by the technical and aesthetic advancements of recent decades, his deeper musical perspective is rooted in the Western common-practice tradition. In his compositions, he explores profound intra-musical layers through pure form, harmonic/kinetic tension, and juxtaposed linearity. Although he makes artistic decisions focused on sonic morphology rather than semantic intent, he rejects a purely materialistic view of sound.

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Recent works by Wong emphasize melodic linearity, using extensive timbral modulation as a "post-production" technique to create "ornamented melodic results." He often conceives the instrumentation as a unified and holistic “meta-instrument,” influenced by electronic music, allowing intersections and fluctuations in timbre and intervallic relationship beyond conventional instrumental boundaries.

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His compositional practice, in relation to culture, is profoundly critical in nature. He exhibits influence from the academically popular post-modern system of thoughts only by disvaluing its militant, deconstructive, antithetical socio-philosophical manifestations along with its foundational historical presuppositions. Contrarily, in his artistic journey, he believes in striving toward an essential purity and sublimity of musical expression and thus makes light of the composer's egocentric ideological attempt toward an (often redundant and limiting) verbal interpretation of his own music. Wang hence assumes a heavily critical stance toward the contemporary culture that is largely force-fed by politicized mass media. However, he does not seek to counter all of this with any conversed ideological input into his music, but rather through non-engagement with industrialized consumerist culture and a devoted discipleship to tried-and-true historic repertoires.

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​Situated within this fractured, discordant world with a significant loss of meaning, he attempts to outface the insincerity and cowardess of neutrality by trying to "compose good music". With a sincere devotion, he endeavors to evoke an intricate world of sound, layered with complexity, exploring, revealing, and redeeming the rich depths of human spiritual experience that gesture beyond finitude.