Yan Liang

Yan Liang — Composer

Yan Liang is a composer whose work explores ritual, mysticism, alchemical symbolism, and the thresholds where sound behaves as trace, omen, residue, or invocation.

As a Montreal-based composer and researcher at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, her music grows out of literary and spiritual experience, exploring ritual, mysticism, alchemical symbolism, and the thresholds at which sound functions as trace, omen, residue, or invocation. Her ongoing cycle Nigredo draws on alchemy’s blackening stage, treating musical situations as symbolic states and transformation as a subtle, restrained process.

Selected Works

• Nigredo VI: Chromatic Black (2026) — for violin, cello, and piano; premiered at the 2026 Tuckamore Festival.
• Nigredo V: Black Sun Escape (2026) — for string quartet; premiered by Quatuor Mémoire.
• Nigredo IV: Noonday Demon (2026) — for clarinet, oboe, alto saxophone, bassoon, and bass clarinet; premiered by 5ilience Ensemble.
• Nigredo VII: Till the Water Be Made Black (2026) — for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano; premiered by Quasars Ensemble at the 2026 Sounds of Now Vienna Festival.
• Ritual Liminality (2025) — electroacoustic work.
• In Mirror, In Nigredo, In Ineffability Topos II (2025) — for violin, saxophone, and piano; premiered by Off-Topic Ensemble.
• In Mirror, In Nigredo, In Ineffability Topos (2024) — for violin, saxophone, and piano; premiered by Off-Topic Ensemble.
• Coiled Within (2024) — for cello, accordion, and percussion; premiered and recorded at the .abeceda Contemporary Music Festival in Slovenia.

For concise orientation, this page offers a brief index of biography, selected works, and contact pathways.