Born in Seoul, South Korea, Liann J. Kang is a composer and vocalist who writes music that brings out imagery and sensory responses that can be stimulated uniquely through the time-based auditory experience of music, inspired by her experience of synesthesia. Kang is interested in the vulnerable, fragile, fleeting, and intangible qualities of “in between” feelings and emotions, manifesting from transitory phenomena such as nostalgia and foreignness. She pays close attention to the qualities of everyday sounds around us, especially their influence as familiar objects to shape listeners’ perception of space – its physical, acoustical, and imaginary aspects.
Kang is a 2025 Tanglewood Music Center Composition Fellow and has been named 2025 ICMC Best Student Music Award, First Prize winner of the 2024 Sweetwater/SEAMUS Commission Competition, and winner of the Twenty-Third Annual 21st Century Piano Commission Competition at the University of Illinois. She is also the recipient of 2024 Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship. Her works have featured internationally at events and conferences including SEAMUS, EMM, NYCEMF, ICMC, Napoleon Electronic Media Festival, CHIMEFest at University of Chicago, Chosun Daily National Debut Concert in Seoul, South Korea, Sound Spaces in Malmö, Sweden, and the highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy.
Her primary teachers have included Philippe Hurel, Yan Maresz, João Pedro Oliveira, Eli Fieldsteel, and has previously had masterclasses led by Kaija Saariaho and John Harbison. She earned a Bachelor of Music in composition with honors from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Currently, Kang is a doctoral candidate in composition-theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she also earned her Master of Music.
Liann J. Kang 