Liuh-Wen Ting, born in Taiwan, graduated from the Juilliard School with Bachelors, Masters, and Professional Studies degrees on the viola. Her major teachers include Karen Tuttle, William Lincer and Eugene Becker; chamber music studies with the Julliard String Quartet. A multi faceted, versatile performer, Liuh-Wen enjoys collaborating with artists from diverse genres and mediums.
Working with composers
Liuh-Wen welcomes the challenge of tackling contemporary music. She has premiered numerous solo and chamber music works. Among them were five commissioned pieces based on the five elements of I-Ching, written by Shih Hui Chen, Mari Kimura, Elliott Sharp, Frances White, and Inessa Zaretzky for her recital at the Merkin Concert Hall. The auspicious program, sponsored by the Interpretation Series, was received with rave reviews. Other premieres include most recently a commissioned piece by Frances White for viola solo, electronics and narrator at the Times Center and a viola sonata by Dana Richardson in 2008, as well as music by Gerry Hemingway, Joelle Wallach, Virko Bailey, and LICA, ISCM, AACM members such as Muhal Richard Abraham, George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell and Leo Wadada Smith, among others. As a staff member of the Composers Conference at Wellesley College since 1993, she has worked with many emerging composers to premiere their works. She is on the artistic committee of the New Path in Music Festival in NYC, with the mission to present music by established foreign composers whose work has rarely been performed in the US.
Music Festivals
Her interest in contemporary music has taken her to international festivals such as The Prague Spring Music Festival, Ostrava New Music Days in Czech Republic, The Warsaw Autumn Music Festival in Poland, Primavera en la Habana international electro-acoustic music festival in Cuba, Etnafest in Italy, the Seal Bay Festival in Maine, and June in Buffalo in NY. For the Ostrava Days, she performed The Viola in My Life by Morton Feldman with the Janacek Symphony Orchestra, which was praised by The Czech Music 2001 as “an extraordinary experience”.
Chamber music affiliations
Liuh-Wen was a member of the award winning Meridian String Quartet from 1996 to 2001, with whom she toured extensively, performing in venues such as the Weill Hall, Miller Theater, Philips Collection, and held a residency at the Copland School of Music at Queens College. She is a member of the SEM ensemble and Son Sonora ensemble, which was featured at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, and had just released recordings of the George Walker quartets in 2007 under Albany Records. She has collaborated with ensembles across many spectrums, including the Ensemble l'art pour l'art, the Rumi ensemble, Manhattan String Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, the New York Chamber Ensemble, the Locrian Chamber Players, the Craftsbury Chamber Players, the Bronx Arts ensemble, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Berkshire Bach Society and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She has also collaborated with many distinguished artists such as vocalists Shahram Nazeri, Tom Buckner, Kathleen Battle, cellist Bernard Greenhouse and flutist Paula Robison.
Orchestra associations
Liuh-Wen performs regularly with the orchestra of St. Lukes, and is a member of the American Composers Orchestra and of Westchester Philharmonic, which welcomes its new director Itzhak Perlman for the upcoming season.
World Music
In recent years, she has begun to collaborate with the extraordinarily talented composer Hafez Nazeri as a member of the Rumi ensemble, which is comprised of Shahram Nazeri, the world-renowned Persian vocalist, Hafez Nazeri-composer and setar player, a cellist, violist, and two percussionists. The ensemble began in 2005 with a concert at the Town Hall in New York City, sponsored by the World Music Institute and followed by a sold-out tour of major cities in the US where they performed in venues such as the Atlantic Symphony Hall, Kodak Theater, and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in 2007.
Recordings
Solo and chamber appearances:
Mode- White: Centre Bridge-Electroacoustic Works
North/South- Marilyn Ziffrin: Songs & Arias for soprano, viola, and piano
Capstone- Diverse Light/Meridian String Qt., Brings: Music Da Camera
Albany Records- George Walker-60th Anniversary Retrospective
CRI, Inc.- Susan Botti: It’s Snowing
Innova Recordings- Flute Force: Eyewitness
Tzadik- Hemingway: Chamber Works; Elliott Sharp-String Quartet 1986-1996
Other works:
Naxos- Kinsley: Voice from the Shadow/Jazz Psalms
Virgin Records-Lenny Kravitz: Are you going my way; It’s Time for a Love Revolution
Nonesuch- Dawn Upshaw sings Vernon Duke
Atlantic Records- The Scarlet Pimpernel cast recording
Liuh-Wen currently resides in New York with her boyfriend Marshall, their dog Gracie, and three cats-Lulu, Comet, and Dini (short for Houdini).
Hi Liuhwen Ting ... Thanks for taking part in my page for musicians of the world ... blessings from the Swallow's Nest in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China, Clay, Pam & Xiaoqing
Very beautiful playing, both in terms of technique, tone, and expressiveness. Thank you for adding me to your list of friends. I loved listening to all your samples including THE VIOLA IN MY LIFE, by my teacher, Morton Feldman.
I would like to invite you to listen to an excerpt from my STRING QUARTET NO. 1 (THE AWAKENING) performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet and ODD WORLD performed by the Gryphon Trio at my MySpace site. Enjoy.
HELLO LIUHWEN TING, THANKS FOR THIS WONDERFUL MUSICAL TRIP, GREAT WORK, BEAUTIFUL MUSIC, I SPENT A VERY NICE TIME IN YOUR SPACE. THANKS FOR THE ADD !!!!! SEE YOU SOON. CHEERS, MOLECULE, (paris)
Greetings Luihwen... Thank you for your kind message - I appreciate your support & you have mine as well! Aaron Meyer - Concert Rock Violinist Portland, Oregon
You can hear the last movt of the concerto I was trying to learn in time(:)) next stop, Quito, Ecuador June1 to play concerto and then next week in Lojah to play another concerto.
