Haotian Yu

Haotian Yu (born in Shanghai; lives and works in Chicago) is a Canadian composer. His music constructs formal and audiovisual systems from speculative analyses of Chinese musical traditions, historical media, and social/ritual practices.

From 2020 to 2026 he lived in Germany. He was the 2025-2026 season composer in residence for the International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA) in Frankfurt am Main and held a 2022-2023 Berlin Fellowship artist residency at the Akademie der Künste Berlin. He is currently a Neubauer Family Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellow in Composition and Sound Practices at the University of Chicago. He previously studied at the Eastman School of Music (on the Lois S. Rogers full scholarship) and the HfMDK Frankfurt (on a DAAD Postgraduate Scholarship); his principal teachers include Orm Finnendahl, Michael Reudenbach, Oliver Schneller, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. 

Recent and upcoming commissions include a violin and media work for Adam Woodward and Lukas Nowok, supported by Musikfonds; new works for IEMA with media premiered at the cresc… Biennale and Gaudeamus Muziekweek; a percussion and media project for Michael Murphy supported by the Canada Council for the Arts; and a trio and video work for Freesound (Toronto), with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. Additional past collaborators include ensemble mosaik, AIR contemporary music collective, Divertimento Ensemble, Ensemble Fons, and Jaume Darbra Fa. 

Also active in new music administration and curation, he is an artistic director for the Beijing-based AIR contemporary music collective (since 2018) and was a 2025-2026 curator-in-residence for Soundstreams (Toronto). His writing has been broadcast on SWR and published in Perspectives of New Music.