Background
Wang Jie was born and raised in Shanghai.
王婕
Wang Jie was born and raised in Shanghai.
A scholarship from the Manhattan School of Music brought her to the United States, in 2000, where she studied composition with Nils Vigeland and Richard Danielpour.
She was a known piano prodigy at age five. Her work has been performed across the United States, Asia, and Europe. While she was still a student, her tragic opera Nannan was showcased by the New York City Opera"s VOX, Contemporary Opera Laboratory
Flown, a chamber opera meditation on two lovers who must separate, was produced by the Music Theatre Group, and the Emily Dickenson-inspired song cycle I Died for Beauty was featured at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Modern Music Festival.
Her piano trio, Shadow, which dramatizes the inner life of an autistic child, was performed by the New Juilliard Ensemble as curtain-raiser for the Museum of Modern Art"s Summergarden concert series. Her 1 (Awakening) was featured by the Minnesota Orchestra at the 2010 Future Classics concert, and a new work is in process for the 45th anniversary celebration of Continuum at Lincoln Center.
John Corigliano described 1 (Awakening) as "gorgeously written – she knows how to take a few notes and spin them into a large form – a rare trait in today"s composers. Robert Beaser described her work as of "elegance and elemental clarity", the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review characterizing it as "scrupulously crafted composition that embraces both Chinese and Western modern classical expression." From the Other Sky, awarded the American Composers Orchestra"s Underwood Commission, a "charming multimedia-comic-opera-meets-song-cycle in four scenes" premiered at Carnegie Hall 15 October 2010 to positive notices such as that of Steve Smith of The New York Times, who noted the work"s "vibrant, polished" quality.
In February 2012 Wang Jie was awarded the Charles Ives Scholarship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She has received honors and awards from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the BMI Foundation, the American Music Center, Opera America, and the Manhattan School of Music, among others As the first composer awarded the Milton Rock Fellowship prize, she was commissioned to compose the environmentally-aware ballet Five Phases of Spring for Philadelphia"s Rock School for Dance Education, and her Death of Socrates won the Northridge Composition Prize. In July 2012 she was awarded the sixth annual Elaine Lebenhorn award of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
