Biography
Photo by Bo Huang
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Alice Ping Yee Ho 何水頤 is a distinguished Chinese Canadian composer celebrated for her versatile, innovative, and deeply expressive body of work. Renowned for her eclectic musical language, she bridges opera, orchestral, chamber, dance, theatre, and electroacoustic music, creating works that blend Eastern and Western influences with originality and emotional depth.Her many honors include the 2024 Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, the 2022 Symphony Nova Scotia Maria Anna Mozart Award, the 2022 Barlow Endowment Commissioning Award, the 2019 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, and the 2013 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Original Opera for The Lesson of Da Ji. Additional distinctions include the Louis Applebaum Composers Award, the K.M. Hunter Artist Award, and the Luxembourg Sinfonietta International Composition Prize.
Ho’s opera CHINATOWN, commissioned by City Opera Vancouver with librettist Madeleine Thien and Hoisanese co-writer Paul Yee, received both the Barbara Pentland Award of Excellence and the Larry Wong Award from the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia. Her music has been performed internationally by leading ensembles including the Finnish Lapland Chamber Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Luxembourg Sinfonietta, Estonia’s Ellerhein Girls’ Choir, and the Polish Radio Choir. In Canada, her works have been presented by the Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphonies, Symphony Nova Scotia, Esprit Orchestra, New Music Concerts, and Art Choral Canada. Ho has collaborated with many distinguished performers and ensembles, including the Penderecki String Quartet, Duo Concertante, the Atlantic String Quartet, TorQ Percussion Quartet, and Sinfonia Toronto. Notable interpreters of her music include violist Rivka Golani, cellist Rachel Mercer, bassist Joel Quarrington; pianists Christina Petrowska Quilico, Katherine Dowling, and Philip Chiu; percussionists Beverley Johnston and Sumire Yoshihara; and flutists Robert Aitken, Patrick Gallois, Susan Hoeppner, and Luisa Sello. A three-time JUNO Award nominee, Ho has released twelve solo albums spanning opera, chamber, orchestral, piano, percussion, and electroacoustic music. Highlights include Ming, Glistening Pianos, The Lesson of Da Ji, The Monkiest King, Venom of Love, and a complete recording of CHINATOWN. Her operas—including The Lesson of Da Ji, The Monkiest King, and CHINATOWN—transcend cultural boundaries while drawing upon her Chinese heritage and universal human themes. Ho holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Toronto, where she studied with John Eaton, Brian Ferneyhough, and John Beckwith. An accomplished pianist and advocate for contemporary music, she has premiered works including Tan Dun’s Traces II. Based in Toronto, Alice Ping Yee Ho continues to captivate audiences with her groundbreaking compositions, imaginative artistry, and singular musical voice. |