PROFILE
Yuanyuan (Kay) HE
Assistant Professor, Music
School of Music
Dr. Yuanyuan (Kay) He is a composer and multimedia artist with roots in China. Her research focuses on using innovative technologies to blur the boundaries between different fields and combine various art forms. Her works often explore and intertwine different forms of media to create unique audiovisual experiences that engage the audience. Many of her works involve collaborations with musicians, choreographers, dancers, scientists, engineers, photographers, visual artists, and stage designers. Her immersive multimedia project StellarScape is a convergence research collaboration synthesizing science, humanity, music, visual art, and technology.
As a composer, she is highly active in the music community. Kay serves as the Creative Director for Electronic Music Midwest (EMM), an annual music festival dedicated to programming a wide variety of electroacoustic music and providing high-quality electronic media performances. She is also the founder and director of the TURN UP Multimedia Festival, which promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, culture connection, and equality. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Arizona School of Music, where she teaches composition, electroacoustic music, multimedia, and orchestration.
Throughout her career, Kay has won many awards and been selected for many performances in the U.S. and abroad. Of note, her piano trio Imprint of the Spring Breeze won the grand prize at the 2nd ACC International Composition Competition in Gwangju, South Korea. On the Pivot of an Abandoned Carouselfor was featured at the ISCM World Music Days in Tongyeong, South Korea. Passeig de Grácia for orchestra was selected for the ACO Underwood New Music Readings in New York, NY. On the Threshold of a Drizzly Reality for cello and electronics was featured at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Athens, Greece and the Root Signals music festival in Jacksonville, Florida. Shadow of Dewdrops was selected as a finalist for TICF in Bangkok, Thailand and was featured at the Gamma UT in Austin, TX. Legends of Old Peking won the Seattle Symphony Celebrate Asia Composition Competition. Dying Away won the DuoSolo Emerging Composer Competition in Cortona, Italy. And, Destiny of Sputnik was featured at the Beijing Modern Music Festival Young Composers Project.
Kay earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied under Dr. Russell Pinkston and Dr. Yevgeniy Sharlat; Master of Music degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she studied under Dr. Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Paul Rudy, and James Mobberley; and Bachelor of Arts degree from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.