Praised by The Wire for music of “iridescent delicacy” and described as “superb,” Dr. Anqi Liu is a composer, interdisciplinary multimedia artist, photographer, and filmmaker. Her solo album of improvisatory synthesizer performance was described by Boomkat as “detailed, narrative-driven sound that traipses across the physical and historical world to make connections we might not initially perceive.” The San Diego Union-Tribune praised her orchestral work How Light Arrives... for its unique musical color and compositional introspection. Her portrait album Veiled Erosion (KAIROS) has received international critical acclaim. de Volkskrant described Liu’s works as “abstract soundscapes, at times frightening, at times heartbreakingly beautiful,” noting that they “move organically and possess almost tangible textures.” Sonograma Magazine wrote that her work unfolds as “a fragile, intimate, and experimental sonic universe,” marked by “extreme attention to microform, texture, and the material relationships between sounds,” while Reportersonline described her music as part of “a spiritual force” pointing toward “a shared future, beyond the oppositions of tradition and experiment, concert hall and alternative venue, elitist and inclusive, aesthetics and message.”
Her written, freely improvised, electronic, and interdisciplinary media works have received international recognition, with performances across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her work has appeared at venues and concert spaces including KM28 in Berlin, Sun Space in Los Angeles, Pen + Brush in New York City, Coaxial Arts Foundation in Los Angeles, Solarc Brewing in Los Angeles, Oracle Egg in Los Angeles, Automata Theater in Los Angeles, The P.I.T in New York City, Downtown Music Gallery in New York City, Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, Shapeshifter Lab in New York City, The Firehouse Space in New York City, Dusk Dawn Club in Beijing, Beijing Mao Live House, MIRY Concertzaal in Belgium, Hotelier Porto in Portugal, the Palace of Fontainebleau in France, and many others. She has worked with a wide range of musicians, ensembles, conferences, residencies, organizations, and festivals, including Elektronmusikstudion EMS, the International Computer Music Conference in 2017 and 2026, the Ligeti Zentrum in Hamburg, Every Woman Biennial, Project [Blank], Reiefestival in Belgium, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik in Austria, Neofonía Festival de Música Nueva in Ensenada, ACTOR at McGill University, Music for Your Inbox, Dog Star Orchestra Festival, Steven Schick, Kynan Johns, King Britt, Kyle Motl, Nina Vanhoenacker, New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra, Mivos Quartet, DECODA Music, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Ensemble Dal Niente Summer Residency, International Society of Bassists Convention, Oh My Ears Festival, IRCAM ManiFeste Academy, ELECTRONIC MUSIC WEEKEND MISE-EN_PLACE Bushwick, Kalv Music Academy in Sweden, California Electronic Music Exchange Concert at Stanford, Écoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau in France, Connecticut Summerfest Contemporary Music Festival, and many others.
Her practice unfolds within what she calls the Ecology of Fraysonics, a framework that treats fieldwork, composition, and technology as forms of threshold dwelling. Through this framework, she approaches traditions as evolving lifeworlds shaped by land, language, migration, memory, and the quiet endurance of everyday routines. Knowledge, in her work, is encountered rather than extracted; sound is continually tested at the limits of what can be heard, written, shared, and sustained. Working across acoustic composition, free improvisation, electronics, modular synthesizer, traditional Mongolian choor khuur, multimedia, interactive system design, and audiovisual ecologies, Liu pursues an ethics of attunement that dwells with fragility, silence, and the limits of documentation, allowing relation, memory, and endurance to remain audible without being reduced into extractable form.
Anqi is half of the Motl/Liu Duo, a free improvisation duo; the Liu/Bourdeau Duo, an audiovisual ecology project; and the cross-disciplinary āññā Duo with Han Zhang. She has taught and designed courses in music theory, composition, multimedia, and sound studies at the University of California San Diego, and currently serves as a subject matter expert at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, where she helps shape the BFA in Music Production. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of California San Diego, a Master of Arts in Music Composition from Rutgers University, and dual degrees in Music Performance and Law from Xiamen University.