Education
- PhD in composition and computer technologies, University of Virginia
- MFA in electronic music/recording media, Mills College
- BM in piano performance, Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Biography
Aurie Hsu is a composer, pianist, and dancer. She composes acoustic, electroacoustic, and interactive music, performs her own prepared/extended piano music, and collaborates with musicians, choreographers, and musical robots.
Hsu’s works have been performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players, Relâche, NOW ensemble, and the Talujon Percussion Quartet, among others. They have been presented around the U.S. at ICMC, SEAMUS, SIGCHI, Pixelerations, Third Practice Festival, and Acoustica 21, and abroad at the Logos Tetrahedron Concert Hall (Belgium) and the Cité International des Arts (France). Hsu won the 2010 International Computer Music Association (ICMA) Student Award for Best Submission for Shadows no. 5, part of a series of pieces for modern tribal belly dancer, electroacoustic music, and Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing (RAKS) system, a wireless sensor interface designed in collaboration with composer Steven Kemper specifically for belly dance.
As a pianist, Hsu has premiered works by Peter Swendsen, Maggi Payne, and Ted Coffey. Sarah Cahill of San Francisco Classical Voice has described her playing as “incendiary” and having “dazzled the audience.” Hsu is a former member of Fire in the Belly Dance Co. (2005-2012), the only professional contemporary belly dance company in central Virginia. Prior to joining the Oberlin faculty, Hsu taught at the University of San Diego and the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.