Your Cart is Empty
Raymond Yiu (姚恩豪, b.1973) is a Hong-Kong born, London-based composer, jazz pianist, conductor and writer on music. He is the winner of a BASCA British Composer Award in 2010 (Northwest Wind), and nominated for the same award in 2004 (Beyond the Glass), 2012 (Les Etoiles au Front) and 2013 (The London Citizen Exceedingly Injured) respectively. Originally trained as an engineer, Yiu was self-taught as a composer until he undertook his DMus under the auspice of Julian Anderson at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2009.
His early work received the advocacy of the American composer-pianist-conductor Lukas Foss. He has worked with ensembles and artists including BBC Singers, BBCSO, Chroma, Concorde Ensemble, Ensemble 10/10, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, The Hermes Experiment, and LSO.
The Original Chinese Conjuror, with a libretto by Lee Warren, was commissioned for the 2006 Aldeburgh Almeida Opera; it received its Austrian premiere at the Musikverein in April 2013, presented by Teatro Barroco of Vienna. Maomao Yü, a quintet for piano and traditional Chinese instruments was commissioned by London Symphony Orchestra for Lang Lang and the Silk String Quartet. It was premiered under the baton of the composer in April 2009.
His ‘hugely impressive’ (The Guardian) Symphony was commissioned by the BBC, and premiered by countertenor Andrew Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner during the BBC Proms 2015.
2017 saw the premiere of his flute concerto Butorflēoge with Ben Pateman and Tallis Chamber Orchestra in March, the Asian premiere of The London Citizen Exceedingly Injured with Hong Kong Philharmonic in April, and The World Was Once All Miracle – commissioned to commemorate the centenary of Anthony Burgess – for Roderick Williams and BBC Philharmonic in July as part of the Manchester International Festival 2017.
The World Was Once All Miracle received its London premiere in April 2018 at the Barbican Hall, with Roderick Williams, BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis, and is released in February 2021 on Delphian:
Raymond Yiu / BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra – appearing for the first time on Delphian – is joined by baritone Roderick Williams in a song-cycle specially commissioned to mark the centenary of the writer Anthony Burgess, while Andrew Watts’ countertenor voice brings an unforgettable human dimension to Symphony, written for the BBC Proms.
Questions of identity, disguise and belonging are never far below the surface in Yiu’s music, whose playful surface has profound truths to tell about a life lived between continents.
