Melissa Hui facts for kids

Melissa Hui is a talented composer and pianist from Canada. She was born in Hong Kong in 1966. Today, she lives in Montreal, Canada, and teaches music at McGill University. She has written many interesting pieces, like and blue sparks burn for violin and piano, and Common Ground for a full orchestra.

Her Life Story

Growing Up and Learning Music

Melissa Hui was born in Hong Kong in 1966. When she was eight years old, in 1974, her family moved to Canada. She grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Melissa started her college journey at the University of British Columbia. There, she studied how to play the piano. Later, she went on to earn her master's and doctoral degrees in music composition. She studied at the California Institute of the Arts and Yale University. Some of her important teachers included Jacob Druckman and Morton Subotnick.

Her Career Journey

In 1993, Melissa Hui helped start a group called the Common Sense Composer's Collective. This group wanted to try new ways of creating and sharing music. They worked with many different music groups over the years.

From 1994 to 2004, Melissa taught at Stanford University. After that, she moved back to Canada. In 2010, she became a professor at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Quebec. She still teaches there today.

About Her Music

Melissa Hui has written many kinds of music. She has created pieces for small groups of instruments, called chamber music. She has also written for large orchestras and choirs.

Music for Orchestras and Choirs

Some of her well-known orchestral works include Between You (1992), Common Ground (1993), and Aljira (1995). These pieces were asked for by big orchestras in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Oregon.

She has also written a few larger pieces for choirs. These include San Rocco (1991), Night on Earth (2001), and Pax (2019). These choral works often include other instruments along with the singers.

Special Chamber Music Pieces

One memorable piece of chamber music is and blue sparks burn (2002). It is written for violin and piano. Melissa Hui said this piece was her way of thinking about the sad events of September 11, 2001.

Two other important chamber works are Speaking in Tongues (1993) and Foreign Affairs (1994). These pieces are special because they use a larger group of fifteen instruments.

Later, she wrote Lacrymosa (1996), which features a soprano singer. Then came Woman: Songs on poems by Sandra Cisneros (1997). This piece includes a mezzo-soprano singer, flute, viola, and cello. As the title suggests, this music uses words from poems by Sandra Cisneros. Melissa Hui even got ideas from a dance scene in a Broadway musical for one part of this piece.

In 1998, Melissa Hui also wrote the music for a short film called "Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square". This film was even nominated for an Oscar award!

Some of Her Compositions

Here are some of the musical pieces Melissa Hui has created:

• 1988: Shadow play (for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and chamber orchestra)
• 1988: Three songs on poems by Longfellow (for solo voice with keyboard)
• 1989: Tempered glass (for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion)
• 1990: Two sides to the wind (for trumpet and full orchestra)
• 1991: San Rocco (for mixed chorus, percussion, and oboe)
• 1992: Between you (for full orchestra)
• 1993: Speaking in tongues: Nine miniatures for fifteen instruments (for chamber orchestra)
• 1994: Foreign affairs (for chamber orchestra)
• 1995: Aljira (for full orchestra)
• 1996: Lacrymosa (for solo voice with chamber ensemble)
• 1997: From dusk to dawn (for chamber orchestra)
• 1998: Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square (film score)
• 1999: In the breath of night (for string orchestra)
• 2001: Night on Earth (for English horn, mixed chorus, and percussion)
• 2002: and blue sparks burn (for violin and piano)
• 2008: Pimooteewin (for singers, narrator, mixed chorus, and instruments)