Biography

Ritual, alchemy, and the subtle violence of transformation. The music of Yan Liang grows out of literary and spiritual experience, approaching what can only be reached through negation, paradox, and ritual liminality, aiming to explore ritual, mysticism, alchemical symbolism, and the thresholds where sound behaves as trace, omen, residue, or invocation.



Her ongoing cycle Nigredo is named after the blackening stage of medieval alchemy, across the cycle, different musical situations become symbolic states, rarely in a dramatic way, as she believes the most important phase of transmutation occurs mostly in a subtle and restrained manner.

Liang is a Montreal-based composer with an additional academic background in Religious Studies and Ritual Research. With the support from her mentor Philippe Leroux, and generous scholarships, awards from McGill, Schulich School of Music, and other foundations, her music has been featured at Time of Music festival, Sounds of Now, highSCORE, abeceda, and Tuckamore, across Netherland, France, Italy, Slovenia, Canada, and Austria. Most recently, her debut electroacoustic work, Ritual Liminality, was selected for Petites Formes 2026 (hosted by TPMC and IRCAM), and was performed in Paris in May 2026.

She has also worked as Composer-in-Residence with numerous Montreal-based chamber ensembles, including Quatuor Mémoire, 5ilience quintet, Off-Topic. Looking ahead, her upcoming projects include combining music and installation, theater art at Time of Music festival, composing for an exhibition focusing on mental health, and a new work for the impuls Academy (Graz, Austria), scheduled for February 2027.