WANG Leyou 王樂遊
Short Bio
WANG Leyou is a composer and conductor born in China. His works span various genres including classical, contemporary, as well as film and video game music. He completed his bachelor and master studies in music theory and orchestral conducting in Germany. In 2020, Wang was accepted into the DMA program of UMKC, during which he won multiple awards in orchestral composition and film composition including American Composers Orchestra's EarShot .
Many of his orchestral pieces have been performed by professional orchestras worldwide, including the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He conducted most of the performances himself.
He's a passionate educator, having taught as lecturer in conservatories both in Germany and the United States. He is also the host of a Bilibili Channel about music theory that has accumulated 38K subscribers and 2.3M views. Popular series such as "To hell with Harmony" are widely used as supplementary materials in conservatories like the Central Conservatory of Music. In 2020, he co-founded 'HI MAESTRO Conservatory', an online music school offering music theory courses. The school has already helped hundreds of students.
Long Bio
Composer and conductor WANG Leyou grew up in Beijing, China. He moved to Stuttgart, Germany in 2009 and studied Music Theory with Prof. Bernd Asmus at HMDK Stuttgart. After finishing his Music theory program with the highest possible score in 2014, Wang got enrolled in the Department of Conducting in Stuttgart, and studied with Prof. Per Borin (Bachelor) and Prof. Rasmus Baumann (Master). At the same time, he did his master's degree in music theory at University of Music Freiburg with Prof. Otfried Büsing and graduated in 2018, with the highest possible score as well. He served as a tutor in the department of music theory for several years at University for music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, before he was employed by the University of Music Freiburg as a part-time lecturer for music theory and harmony in 2018.
During his study, multiple orchestral pieces of his have been performed under his own conducting by professional orchestras including Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. His symphonic piece The Battle of Shantsuguan won the 2015 Winter Kompolize Award for composition. This piece was performed by Lietze Orchestra in the Linden Church, the Berlin Broadcasting House (Große Sall des BBR) under his own conducting. Since then, multiple orchestral pieces of his has been performed by professional Orchestras in Germany including Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen and Junge Philharmonie Baden-Württemberg. He conducted most of the performances himself. In 2017, his piece "Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano" won the first prize of Joseph Dorfman Memorial Competition for Composers.
In 2020, Wang was accepted into the DMA program of University of Missouri Kansas City with full scholarship. He has been studying with Dr. Chen Yi and Dr. Zhou Long. During the program, he won the 1st Prize of Lei Cine Film Scoring Competition in 2021 (Beijing China), the Dr. Gerald Kemner prize of orchestra composition as well as UMKC Conservatory Chamber Music Composition in 2022. In 2023 he was chosen as one of the featured artists of the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot program.
He is a passionate educator, hosting a Bilibili (Chinese equivalence of YouTube) Channel about music theory, composition and conducting with ca. 400 videos, 38K subscribers and over 2.3 million views. (https://space.bilibili.com/39034282) Popular series including "To hell with Harmony" and "To hell with counterpoint" are universally praised by music teachers and students alike. The series are often use as supplementary teaching materials in conservatories in China, including Central Conservatory of Music and Wuhan Conservatory of Music. In 2020 he co-founded the online school for music theory "HI MAESTRO Conservatory" offering classes on harmony, counterpoint, form, orchestration, and work analysis. The school has already served hundreds of students, many of whom have secured a place to study in conservatories.