38 years-old in 2011, composer Lei Liang began piano lessons at the age of four. He was only sixteen in June, 1989, when he witnessed firsthand the violence at Tiananmen Square in China, an event that inspired some of his later musical efforts. After moving the the U.S. in 1990, he attended New England Conservatory of Music, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music, as well as a Ph.D. at Harvard University.
Since 2007, he has been on the UCSD faculty, along with his wife, Japanese harpsichordist Takae Ohnishi. His compositions having been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Manhattan Sinfonietta, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Shanghai Quartet, and others.
His album Milou was released on New World Records in 2011. In summer 2012, he was the recipient of the Herb Alpert Foundation's Alpert/Ragdale Music Composition prize.
She was also a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music for composing Xiaoxiang, a concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra.