Sofia Jen Ouyang (b.2001) is a composer interested in the collision and intersection between musical, literary, and philosophical concepts. Central to her thinking are concepts and categories, in no particular order: ideologies, binaries, ambiguities, indeterminacies, philosophies, literary theories, physicality, noise, gender, sexuality, music, paradigms, hybridity, interculturality, meaning.
Sofia is the winner of BMI Composer Award 2023, Columbia University’s Douglas Moore Prize 2023, The American Prize in Composition 2022, and The Juilliard School’s Gena Raps Piano Chamber Music Prize 2022. She is currently pursuing her bachelor degrees in Philosophy and Music at Columbia University, and studies composition with Andrew Norman and Amy Beth Kirsten at The Juilliard School. Sofia is one of eight composers selected to attend Lucerne Festival Composer Seminar 2023, a BluePrint composer fellow with National Sawdust (2021), and a recipient of Columbia University’s Rapaport Fellowship (2021, 2022). In addition, her works have been selected by Serbian Composer Association’s 31st International Review of Composer and Society of Composers Inc. (2021), and she has received honors from BMI Student Composer Award (2021), Luna Lab (2020), and the National Young Composer Challenge (2019).
Sofia’s works has been performed across the US, Europe, and Asia, including in venues such as Lincoln Center, Columbia’s Miller Theatre, National Sawdust, The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, Vienna School of Music and Performing Arts, Rockport Music Shalin Liu Performance Center, and in music festivals such as Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, New Music On The Point, ICEBERG, and Atlantic Music Festival. She has received commissions from New York Virtuoso Singers, Columbia University New Opera Workshop, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and has collaborated with ensembles and musicians including the JACK Quartet, Trio Immersio, National Sawdust Ensemble, members of Philadelphia Orchestra, members of Imani Winds, members of International Contemporary Ensemble, vocalist Brittany Hewitt, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, clarinetist Stanislav Chernyshev, pianist Cornelia Herrmann, trombonist Scott Hartman, and percussionist Sae Hashimoto, among others. Sofia is grateful to have been mentored by David Ludwig, Claire Chase, and Zosha Di Castri.
