A native of Taiwan, Yu-Hui Chang’s compositions have been performed across continents in the Netherlands, Italy, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and throughout the U.S. by Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Nieuw Ensemble, Earplay, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Adorno Ensemble, Alea III, Auros, Dinosaur Annex, The Group for Contemporary Music, Alexander String Quartet, Lydian String Quartet, Amy Dissanayake, Marilyn Nonken, erhu virtuoso Jiebing Chen, among others. Often described by critics as “vivid and consistently engaging” and “compelling…with inventive touches,” Yu-Hui Chang’s music is characterized by its lyricism, intense harmonic language, and inventive effects. She strives to have her music resonate with listeners with a humanity that is a reflection of her own philosophical and aesthetic values. She also believes that good music speaks to its audience regardless of its style.

In March 2006, Works and Process at the New York Guggenheim Museum presented three of Ms. Chang’s works, highlighting her as a new talent of the younger generation. Her contemporary take on cross-cultural genres and topics has recently led her to an array of projects, including Wu (2006-07) for cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau and Korean gayageum performer Hee-Jeong Kim. Her piano solo work Longbird (2006), written for pianist Marilyn Nonken, was a reinterpretation of a Taiwanese political folksong of the Japanese Colonial Period. She also wrote the score for the Brandeis Theater Company on a play based on a Chinese folktale, titled “The Orphan of Zhao” (2007). One of the recent commissions includes a percussion ensemble piece for the Ju Percussion Group, a preeminent Taiwanese percussion ensemble excelling in contemporary repertoire as well as Chinese gong-drum music.

Yu-Hui Chang has been recognized through awards and commissions from the American Composers Forum, Meet the Composers, Arts Council Korea, the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan (Taiwanese government agency), the ACL - Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, Music Taipei Composition Competition, the Wayne Peterson Prize (honorable mention), the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the National Concert Hall of Taiwan, the 2003 Seoul International Festival of Women in Music Today, and many others. Numerous prominent national and international festivals have also featured her music, including the Asian Music Festival in Tokyo, the Asian Contemporary Music Festival in Seoul, the Conference and Festival of the Asian Composers' League in Taipei, the Festival of New Music at the Florida State University-Tallahassee, the Pacific Rim Music Festival at UC Santa Cruz, the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, and the Festival of New American Music at California State University - Sacramento.

Ms. Chang began her intensive music training including piano, voice, and music theory at the age of six, and started seriously pursuing composition as a career at the age of fourteen. She came to the United States in 1994 and received her graduate degrees from Brandeis University (Ph.D.) and Boston University (MM), studying with Marjorie Merryman, Yehudi Wyner, Martin Boykan, and David Rakowski. Now a composition faculty member at Brandeis University, Ms. Chang taught at the University of California-Davis between 1999-2006 and co-directed the Empyrean Ensemble. Her music may be found in CDs recorded by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, pianist Lara Downes, and pianist Amy Dissanayake. She also appeared as a conductor in composer Ross Baue’s CD “Ritual Fragments” of the Albany label.