Tan Yuting | Composer

Singaporean composer Tan Yuting explores the interaction of different sounds and the manipulation of rhythm, texture, and timbre to create evocative soundscapes. Her music has been recognized with awards including First Prize in the Macht Orchestral Composition Competition (2018), First Prize in the Virginia Carty DeLillo Composition Competition (2018), and Third Prize in the Prix d’Été Competition (2017) at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and has been performed in Singapore, USA, UK, Thailand, Finland, New Zealand, and Italy. Past collaborations include performances by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra, Sandbox Percussion, Ekmeles, National Sawdust Ensemble, Tacet(i) Ensemble, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, The Opera People, K⼝U, Quince Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, ~Nois, Alarm Will Sound, Now Hear This, Unassisted Fold, and Ensemble Soundinitiative.

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Yuting also enjoys working with artists from other fields and creating music in collaboration with other art forms. In 2019, she performed her original live score for the USA premiere screening of Chinese film pioneer Shouju Zhu’s 1925 film “Stormy Night” (Fengyu zhi ye). Yuting often looks to poetry when she is composing as she is interested in the tactile or visual associations between the text and the music that she is writing. Her doctoral dissertation composition, Amnesia, was based on a poem she wrote of the same title. She has also performed improvisations and compositions on the piano to accompany poetry recitals.

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Currently, repetition, memory, and groove are common themes in her research and artistic practice. As part of her doctoral research, Yuting’s paper “‘Music is pictures of music’: Seeing Double/Hearing Double in Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee” relates principles of visual perception to Abrahamsen’s construction of the piece and explores the ways repetition and repetitive structures affect temporal experience in the hour-long work.

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Yuting received her PhD in Music Composition from the University of Chicago where she was supported by a full fellowship from the Division of the Humanities. She also holds Master of Music degrees in Music Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy from The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and a Joint Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Composition with Honours (Highest Distinction), awarded jointly by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (National University of Singapore) and the Peabody Institute. Apart from composition, Yuting also plays the piano and occasionally writes poetry. Yuting currently teaches at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore.