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 different concerts and festivals across Finland, France, Italy, Slovenia, Canada, and Austria, like Time of Music festival, Sounds of Now, abeceda, Tuckamore, and more.

In 2026, her Nigredo V: Black Sun Escape was named a finalist in the 4th MusicON International Composition Competition and is scheduled for performance in New York in October. Her electroacoustic work Ritual Liminality was selected for Petites Formes 2026, presented by TPMC and IRCAM, and was performed in Paris in May.

She has also worked with ensembles including Quasars ensemble, Quatuor Mémoire, Trio Kanon, 5ilience quintet, Off-Topic and other individual artist. Upcoming projects include works for string quartet, solo violin, interdiciplinary work with Radically Relational Futures Fellowship (RRFF), and other collaborations in the impuls Academy (Graz, Austria), scheduled for February 2027.