Today we’d like to introduce you to Jiahui Yu
Jiahui, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started learning piano from five years old and have been using logic for writing music since I was 14. I have always had a strong interest in computer music. During this period, I learned computer music composition and later successfully enrolled in Berklee to learn the related things systematically. At Berklee, I mainly studied creating music for visual media – Film and Video game scoring, which I think brings more value and enables me to feel more of it from my deep heart.
During my college years, I took on many projects both on and off campus: writing for pop music, short films, games, animations and documentaries. I also do arranging works and music editing. Some of them are from the US; some are from China. At the same time, I received the dean’s list for all 8 semesters and kept my GPA at 3.96/4.
After college, I got back to China and started writing video game music for an internet company – Bilibili, in 2022. Now I quit my job and seeking for media scoring and production on my graduate life in Frost School of Music, University of Miami. Luckily, now I got full scholarship and being as a teaching assistant for professor Carlos Rafael Rivera, who’s an amazing composer winning Grammy and Emmy Awards.
During the creation process, I prefer to feel the content of the media. When I get together with it, I can write music that fits with it. It’s more like the first thing you feel when you see it. I think feeling must be the most integral part of composing a film.
In the future creation, I will pay more attention to the feeling because I always believe that when I write what I really feel, it must be the most worthwhile moment for a composer.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The ultimate goal of many independent artists around me is to achieve self-worth or to reflect contemporary social phenomena so that people try to see things as they really are. However, working artist sometimes needs to meet the market demand while finding the general direction to achieve the goal or find a partner with a common mission to move forward together. Either of these is difficult, and working artists will have disagreements with their partners or bosses because they may not have the same ideas and may end up losing track of their original goals. I think an important thing for an artist to do is to keep his original intention all the time and do self-reflection often. This must be good for the individual as well as all human beings to move forward.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
During my high school years, I’m a keyboard player for the band. I’ve performed at the 6th Integration East West International Conference, in “School of Rock” of Beijing Tianqiao Theater, and many times in Beijing 13 Club, School Club and Temple Club…
I applied for eight undergraduate schools and got the offer of seven of them, including Berklee, LACM, MI, SFCM, Peobody, Cincinnati and the Australian Institute of Music. I chose Berklee.
In College (2019-2022), I majored in Film Scoring and minor in Video game scoring. I’m the Associated Music Director and arranger of the Chinese New Year Concert Show in Berklee Performance Center. I got Dean’s List Honoree 2019FA, 2020SP, 2020SU, 2020FA, 2021SP, 2021SU, 2021FA, in nearly all semesters.
During my college years, I collaborated with a creative team in my class and composed music for the Documentary – Our Turn to Talk in 2022. At the same time, I wrote music for game designer Suli Zhang for 3 games through 2021 – 2023. I did half music of “The Mountain Calls” in 2023, all music for “Efface”(Designed for game jam in 48h) in 2022 and all music for “Trapped” in 2021.
After College, I composed music for Director Weiqi Cai (Who invited me to this interview) for three times in his short films. For the first time, our Short film – “You Asked Me What’s In My Mind?” won the BEST SOUNDTRACK – MIFF (Montelupo Fiorentino Film Festival) in 2022. For the second time, our short film -“End of Summer” won the BEST ORIGINAL SCORE in 2023 SHISW Short Awards in May.
The thing I am proud of myself is I’m happy to do all different kinds of work related to music. I’d love to compose for all genres and I’m open to any form of media which needs music. I wrote songs and sing it myself, I’m not only a composer. I wrote both lyrics (Chinese & English), Harmonys and melodies.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
As a film/video game composer, mostly I’m taking risks on the demand of director. One of my teacher used to tell me that if someone wants you to write a new style of music, you should always say yes, no matter you done or not done it before.
At first, it was really hard for me to say yes. Because I have to complete a perfect music creation while learning a lot about this style within a limited creative cycle. In other words, this is the biggest impetus for me to learn a new style. Before that, I was actually a little bit resistant to getting into a completely new style. But I’ve found that with this approach, you can make a lot of progress while taking risks. Therefore, I think it is necessary for composers to take risks.
Pricing:
- Film/Video Game music: 300$/min
- Arranging works: 350$/min
Contact Info:
- Website: https://amyyumusic.com
- Instagram: amyyujh
- Other: Chinese Tik Tok: 41670705 Bilibili (Chinese) : 65213895
Image Credits
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