"Blame the Obituary" for Pierrot Ensemble and Narrator. Co-commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo and Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center

"Blame the Obituary" for Pierrot Ensemble and Narrator. Co-commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo and Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center

"Blame the Obituary" for Pierrot Ensemble and Narrator. Co-commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo and Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center

Wang Jie joins Only Stage Management. https://www.onlystage.co.uk/composer-wang-jie-joins-only-stage-managements-roster-2/

"The Night When You See Again" for organ and string quartet, commissioned by the Apollo Chamber Players. World Premiere Sep 10th 2022.Today's classical music is abuzz with the word “diversity.” As a Shanghai-looking New Yorker, I have been nourished by the united nation of world music. While this miraculous city blossoms with cultural dialects from all corners of the world, it is held together as a Western civilization, its native tongue English. For me, more often than not, listening to a stranger speak heavily-accented-English felt like overcoming a sonic barrier. It all comes collapsing down as soon as the speaker says something that feels meaningful to me. We’ve known this for a long time: for diversity to become sustainable, the barriers must come down first. In this piece I wonder out loud: 1) what is authentically Western classical? 2) What transforms diversity into strength (i.e. integrity)? When I was creating this work, I kept reminding myself that I was a classically trained composer nursed by the former Soviet methods. My Debussy-loving father summed it up brilliantly: they got the best of the French and the German, these Russians! Those pioneering spirits who turned a page for classical music were my guiding constellations. They were composers, not “Russian” composers. “The Night When you See Again” integrates the joyful exuberance often native to jazz, characteristics of J.S.Bach’s organ legacy, poetic reference to Louise Glück, microtonal treatment pioneered by the French Spectrum school, string quartet textures echoing the Russian Schnittke, and last but not least, the essence of Indian raga system as the thematic thread.For more information: https://wangjiemusic.com/_all-works/the-night-when-you-see-again/

One-on-one studio instruction: undergraduate and graduate composition majors.Classroom teaching: Fundamentals of Music (1300, 1400)

Classical music - opera, symphony, chamber music of all combination and solo works. Film music - sounds like Bernard Herrmann.

Musica Sacra commissioned "The Name that Never Dies" for Cathedral of St. John the Divine. World premiere on March 22nd 2022. Repeat performance on Cathedral's New Year's Eve Peace Concert, Dec. 31st 2022.

Commissioned work for world premiere: July 22nd 2021. To learn more:https://wangjiemusic.com/_all-works/flying-on-the-scaly-backs-of-our-mountains/

➡︎ "The Winter that United US" world premiered on June 11th 2022, BPO led by JoAnn FallettaVideo Score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9WUZrSL0kM&list=PLE-ByDntKQoVMs-9Cd4--GjmoJa5Rx48M&index=5➡︎ "SYMPHONY NO.1", Feb. 10th & 11th 2018: JoAnn Falletta conducts one of her favorite pieces: Scheherazade. Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä performs Sibelius’ Violin Concerto. A 15-minute symphony by Wang Jie completes this dynamic program. Recording: https://wangjiemusic.com/_all-works/symphony-no-1/

The New York Times calls her "an artist to watch." Shanghai-born American composer Wang Jie was selected to be Festival Opera's first composer in residence for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.Still a young composer, Wang Jie's credentials are growing rapidly. Her Symphony No. 2, commissioned and premiered by the Detroit Symphony Orche stra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin was streamed live to a worldwide audience. The showcase of her tragic opera Nannan by New York City Opera's VOX led to the production of her chamber opera Flown, commissioned and produced by Music-Theatre Group. Having won the Underwood Composers Commission, her concert opera From the Other Sky was the centerpiece of the American Composers Orchestra's season opening concert at Carnegie Hall. It was also the foundation for a double-bill of chamber operas entitled From the Land Fallen -- originally "To Kill That Bird"-- which Festival Opera will premiere in 2017 in collaboration with American Opera Projects (AOP) New York. AOP was awarded the OPERA America grant for Female Composers in 2014 to develop this production. OPERA America's Opera Grants for Female Composers provide support for the development of new operas by women, both directly to individual composers and to opera companies producing their work, advancing the important objective of increasing diversity across the field. Festival Opera is partnering with AOP on development activities and the the world premiere. Maestro Michael Morgan will conduct, and Beth Greenberg will return to Festival Opera as stage director. Greenberg most recently directed Festival Opera's production of Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis and Heggie's Another Sunrise in 2014. Wang Jie will participate in interactive community events and a workshop of From the Land Fallen during the 2016 season with Festival Opera.

"...by turns whimsical, campy, tragic, haunting" - Jay Nordlinger, The New Criterion (Dec. 2010)Now in development in cooperation with Festival Opera, Rated R for Rat tells of the time when the original thirteen Zodiac Animals were downsized to the twelve we know today. Expanded from Jie's previous chamber opera, From the Other Sky, Rated R for Rat is the campy, whimsical and evocative story of how the Thirteenth Zodiac Goddess experiences human compassion for the first time, and loses her place in the heavens to share her musical powers with humankind. With both music and libretto by the composer, Rated R for Rat will be sung in English. Commissioned by American Opera Projects, through Opera America Female Composers Commissioning Grant, made possible through the generosity of The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Developed in association with Festival Opera. World premiere production by Festival Opera in 2017.The concert opera version is titled "From the Other Sky". It was commissioned by American Composers Orchestra/Mr. Paul Underwood and first premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2010.

SYMPHONIC OVERTURE "AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL"for Orchestra3222, 4331, Timp, 2 Perc, Hp, Pno, StringsDuration6 minutesPremiere: Oct. 22nd 2016, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Josep Caballé-DomenechProgram note:Those near and dear have a nickname for me: “part-time monkey.” A hiker, rock climber, mischievous spirit and lover of adventure on mountains and cliffs, I have been waiting for this piece my whole life. When the Colorado Springs Philharmonic asked me to compose a concert opener inspired by Pikes Peak and the patriotic song “America, the Beautiful,” I said yes without hesitation. My desire was answered in the most cosmic, karma-istic way. I was mystified. Several ideas knocked at my door, demanded full attention. It was an all-or-nothing deal.Aside from my monkey business, I am an American. Hearing “O beautiful…” and “purple mountain majesties” stirs me. In today’s fractured political climate, this song brings the nation together in our shared love for this shining land and all it represents; this song is a well of hope. Fractured but full of hope, I re-harmonized “America, the Beautiful” and placed the song at the core of this overture.Once my inner patriot provided structure, the part-time monkey animated sections with her usual quirks. Tracing the unique silhouette of Pikes Peak to the letter, I began part II of this overture with a fugue subject that musicalizes the signature contour of the entire mountain region. And once the fugue starts, it can’t be stopped.The rest of Symphonic Overture is a generous collection of motivic sparks from the song “America, the Beautiful”. Some obvious. Others reserved for happy discoveries of multiple listening. You don’t think I’m going to hand it all to you in one performance, do you?-Wang Jie

Wang Jie's "Symphony No.2" was commissioned by Detroit Symphony Orchestra, premiered on March 26th 2014 and was streamed live to a global audience. This concert series was led by Leonard Slatkin.

Wang Jie's command of the theatrical form was apparent from the very beginning of her career. "From the Other Sky" was commissioned by American Composers Orchestra for their 2010 season opening concert at Carnegie Hall. The premiere of this original concert opera, the first of its kind, was led by George Manahan with the composer costumed as a monkey, playing three different keyboards. Not one minute out of the 17 did the piece lose one audience member.

In 2008, Music-Theatre Group commissioned Wang Jie to compose a series of works that pondered the boundary of concert music and chamber opera. In other words, I was faced with a challenge to “show” narratives through the abstract lens of instrumental music in the presence of the most natural narrative expression: vocal music.The outcome was FLOWN, an evening of playing and singing which meditates on two lovers who must part. I caught this title in the wind when it hit me that young love can be so temperamental! Sometimes, it overwhelms. Sometimes, it simply flies away.The direct source of inspiration comes from my collaborator Steve Ross Smith. I was a resident composer at the Banff Centre in the Summer of 2008, and met Steve there at a reading of his poetry. His words sounded like music without music and I was intrigued. I introduced myself to him and we immediately began discussing ideas for FLOWN.Although the structure of FLOWN was already in place at that time, I insisted that Steve record his libretto ideas without concern about form. I begged for his forgiveness if I would later have to alter his words to better fit the flow of my music.FLOWN begins with a solo Serenade on loneliness and regret. It provokes memories of the lovers’ early encounters in “Game for Two”, a piano duo that spans from flirtation to clash. The center piece “In Wind They Cleave” laments details of the parting with vivid singing from both lovers, accompanied by the complete ensemble. Percussion duo “Dance for Two” concludes the parting in hope and celebration of love.