World Premiere Recording AN AMERICAN SOLDIER Announced by American Composers Orchestra

The American Composers Orchestra (ACO) today released the world premiere recording of composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang’s moving and timely opera, An American Soldier, conducted by Carolyn Kuan, digitally via Platoon. This world premiere recording lands just before Memorial Day in the United States, May 26, which is also Danny Chen’s birthday. Chen would have been thirty-three years old this year. 

Described as "taut and haunting" by The Wall Street Journal and "clearheaded" and "touching" by The New York Times, the opera is based on the true story of Chinese-American Army Pvt. Danny Chen, who was found dead in a guard tower at his base in Afghanistan in 2011, and the ensuing courts-martial of Chen’s fellow soldiers. The New York premiere of An American Soldier in May 2024 was co-produced by Perelman Performing Arts Center | PAC NYC, Boston Lyric Opera, and American Composers Orchestra, and co-commissioned by PAC NYC and Boston Lyric Opera.

Lauded for his “distinctive style” (The New York Times), composer Huang Ruo’s vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, the Western avant-garde, experimental music, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz. Best known for his plays, including M. Butterfly and Yellow Face, Tony, Obie, and GRAMMY-winner David Henry Hwang wrote the libretto for An American Soldier. Hwang is a prolific opera librettist, having written several operas with composers such as Philip Glass, Bright Sheng, and Unsuk Chin. An American Soldier was David Henry Hwang's first collaboration with Huang Ruo. 

The stellar cast of this recording from the 2024 PAC NYC production includes tenor Brian Vu as Danny Chen, mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen as his mother, soprano Hannah Cho as his school friend Josephine Young, and baritone Alex DeSocio as Sgt. Aaron Marcum, one of the soldiers charged in the investigation. Ensemble cast members include Ben Brady, Cierra Byrd, James C. Harris, Shelén Hughes, Joshua Sanders, and Christian Simmons.

Originally premiered at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2018, the New York premiere of An American Soldier in May 2024 was directed by Obie Award-winning director Chay Yew and met by rave reviews – Classical Voice North America said ACO was “exactly the band you want for complex new orchestral music;” Stage and Cinema stated ”the story itself is so powerful and disturbing you cannot help being touched;” and New York Theater noted “Huang Ruo’s sophisticated, rhythmic, Asian-inflected score, performed by the 38-piece American Composers Orchestra and a gloriously-voiced ten-member cast.” 

About Huang Ruo

Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New Yorker as “one of the world’s leading young composers” and by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz. As a member of the new generation of Chinese composers, his goal is not just to mix both Western and Eastern elements, but also to create a seamless, organic integration. Huang Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film.

Huang Ruo’s music has been premiered and performed by orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, National Polish Radio Orchestra, Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic; ensembles and quartets such as Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Remix Ensemble, Quatuor Diotima, and Ethel Quartet; and conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Michael Tilson Thomas, James Conlon, Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Ed Spanjaard, Peter Rundel, Alexander Liebreich, Xian Zhang, and Ilan Volkov.

Huang Ruo’s opera Dr. Sun Yat-Sen had its American premiere at the Santa Fe Opera in 2014 and will receive its Canadian premiere by the Vancouver Opera in a future season. His opera Paradise Interrupted received its world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2015 and was performed at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2016 before going on tour to Asia and Europe. In addition, his works were shown at Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, and Opera Hong Kong.

Huang Ruo was the first composer-in-residence of Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam. He is also in residence at the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.

Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976 – the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. His father, who is also a composer, began teaching him composition and piano when he was six years old. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, when China was opening its gates to the Western world, he received both traditional and Western education at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. As a result of the dramatic cultural and economic changes in China following the Cultural Revolution, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Huang Ruo was able to absorb all of these newly allowed Western influences equally. After winning the Henry Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland, Huang Ruo moved to the United States to further his education. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from The Juilliard School.

Huang Ruo is currently on the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music at the New School in New York. He is the artistic director and conductor of Ensemble FIRE (Future In REverse), and was selected as a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States–China Relations in 2006.