Compositions
Her works include compositions for solo instruments, electroacoustic music, chamber music, orchestral works, opera, indie pop, punk, theatre, oral tradition music, sound installations, and performance art pieces. Du's works have been performed internationally in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Guangzhou Opera House, the Salle Pleyel Paris, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Escola de Música do Estado in São Paulo, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in Germany, and London's Southbank Centre. She has written for the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the LA Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, as well as solo artists Hilary Hahn and Matt Haimovitz.
On April 10, 2017, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her second opera, Angel's Bone. The citation for the prize reads: "Premiered on January 6, 2016, at the Prototype Festival, 3LD Arts and Technology Center, New York City, a bold operatic work that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world. Libretto by Royce Vavrek."
She is the composer of the musical Dim Sum Warriors, based on a graphic novel and bilingual iPad app series about Kung Fu-fighting dumplings by the Singaporean filmmaker, satirist, and cartoonist Colin Goh and Yenyen Woo. Dim Sum Warriors was made into a Chinese musical which was produced by Stan Lai. The musical debuted on August 11, 2017, to sold-out audiences at Theatre Above in Shanghai, and went on to tour in 25 major cities in China the following year.
Her work with the Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrrar, "Where We Lost Our Shadows", is based on a trip that Khaled took with a family of Syrian refugee from Greece to Berlin. The work was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, London's Southbank Centre, the Kennedy Center, American Composers Orchestra and CalPerformances. Its documentary was on the National Geographic's Human Journey series. The work is for three soloists, orchestra and video.
In 2020, her site-specific opera Sweet Land, co-composed with composer Raven Chacon, premiered in LA with the opera company The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon and Cannupa Hanska Luger. Sweet Land is a double-team work, with libretto by Aja Couchois and Douglas Kearney. The Los Angeles Times named it a best classical music moment in 2020, a parable of, and fantasia on, manifest destiny.
It won the Best 2021 New Opera by The Music Critics Association of North America. The album, released in 2021, was a Notable recording of 2021 by The New Yorker.
Du Yun's concert music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc.
