Zhuosheng Jin
Zhuosheng Jin, composer
With his music described as “powerful” and “haunting” (The New York Times), Zhuosheng Jin, Dr. (b1991, Ningbo, China) is a composer, pianist, and writer. Jin’s music spans on a variety of instrumentations and mediums, including orchestra, chamber, solo, and electronic. Influenced by filmmakers such as Theo Angelopoulos and Andrei Tarkovsky, Jin’s composition emphasises relationships between literature, especially poetry, and sonic texture. In his music, the sound is always driven by its literary implications. There are particular topics setting his composition up that he often emphasises in his music writings, including the destined loneliness of beings, identities, homesickness, love, and so on
Dr. Jin is currently an Assistant Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. He holds degrees from Oberlin College (BM ‘15), Boston University (MM ‘17), and McGill University (DMUS ‘22). His teachers include Philippe Leroux, Joshua Fineberg, Josh Levine, Alex Mincek, and Xiaogang Ye (composition), Shuxing Zheng, Robert Shannon, Webb Wiggins, and David Breitman (keyboard), Davide Ianni (electronic music), and Christoph Neidhöfer (music theory), among others. Jin also followed private lessons and master-classes with Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, Beat Furrer, Marco Stroppa, and Stefano Gervasoni, and more.
The awards he has won include Toru Takemitsu Composition Award (2019, 3rd prize), Matan Givol Composers Competition (2020, 1st prize), Salvatore Martirano Award (2020, 1st prize), Andrea Ceraso Rome Award (2023, first prize), Irino Prize (2021), Novalis International Composition Competetion (2021), Luba Zuk Prize (2021), New Generation Composition Competition (2020, 3rd prize), John Rea Award (2019), Société de concerts de Montréal Emerging Composers Competition (2018), and TURNmusic Collegiate
Composition Prize (2017). He has also received honourable mentions in I/CREATION Composition Competition (2021 and 2018), Appassionato Ensemble Composition Competition (2021), Lake George Composition Competition (2019), Breaking Music Composition Contest (2019), and Giovannini Composition Competition (2018), etc. His scores are published by Babel Scores.
Jin’s music has been programmed worldwide by IRCAM-Manifeste, Festival Archipel, Impuls Festival, Composit New Music Festival, Delian New Music Festival, outHear New Music Week, CEME Festival, ARCO Université, June in Buffalo New Music Festival, Festival IntAct, Beijing Modern Music Festival, China-ASEAN Music Week, and Hangzhou Contemporary Music Festival, etc. He has written for the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra, Klangforum Wien (soloists), Ensemble InterContemporain (soloists), Ensemble MusikFabrik (soloists), Divertimento Ensemble (soloists), Schallfeld Ensemble (soloists), Meitar Ensemble, Les Métaboles, Ensemble Multilatérale (soloists), AsianArt Ensemble, Barcelona Modern Ensemble, Tacet(i) Ensemble, Quatuor Béla, Ensemble Mdi, Syntax Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, JACK Quartet, Trio Roadrunner, and Ensemble Mise-en, etc., as well as conductors Pierre-André Valade, Jean-Philippe Wurtz, Guillaume Bourgogne, Kanako Abe, Pasquale Corrado, Guoyong Zhang, Yongyan Hu, Daye Lin, and Brian Liao, et al. His articles are published by major periodicals such as Music Weekly, China, etc.
Jin has also worked as an author, director, and curator. Projects include “At the Last Day” (director, screenwriter, and leading actor; short drama, 2009 made in Beijing), “Funeral of Adam” (director, screenwriter, and leading actor; film, 2012 made in Xi’an), “Eyes and Mind” (curator and sound director; art exhibition, 2015 in Shenzhen Art Academy), and “HOME” (sound artist, installation, 2017 made in Boston), “field | guide” (text, multimedia project, 2019 – 22 in Boston), among others. His poetry “Flower and Solitary Dancer” (《花與孤獨的舞者》) was published in Taiwan in October, 2024.
He is the founder and currently the organiser of “MUS Talks” Lecture Series and the Salon Concert Series at CUHK Shenzhen. As a guest lecturer, Jin has been well-received at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of California Irvine, Université de Montréal, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, among others.
