Today we’d like to introduce you to Jiahui Yu.
Hi Jiahui, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
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.
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.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
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.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
During my high school years, I’m a keyboard player for the band. I performed with the band “Abyss” at the 6th Integration East West International Conference; Performed with “Abyss” t in “School of Rock” of Beijing Tianqiao Theater; performed with the band “The Shark” many times in Beijing 13 Club, School Club and Temple Club…
I applied for eight 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 two 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.
I arranged several music songs for composer Long Wang in China. My arranging work “Da Mo Xing Ge” for him has won the second prize in The first annual Millions of Musicians Music Festival in 2022.
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. I wrote lyrics for the Kuai Shou Olympic Promotion Song “Zhuang Yuan” in 2021.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Weiqi Cai (Mentioned Before) is the first director I’ve collaborated with myself, and he’s also the best director I have met. It’s lucky for me to collaborate with him and will go through a long way in the future.
Long Wang(Mentioned Before) is a professor from the China Conservatory of Music. We know each other from Chinese Tik Tok and has done some awesome work together for four times since last year. Thanks for him to bring me into his works and I really enjoyed playing arranging roles in all his music works.
Nancy Li is my first film-scoring mentor. She helps me a lot on my music road and brings me into her film projects to let me grow up quickly. I chose to seek film music because of her.
Suli Zhang (Mentioned Before) is the video game designer I’ve been collaborating since 2021. We have our own paces and know each other well through these three game projects. She is talented and hard-working and there’s so much happiness that I can get from her during work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jyu333.wixsite.com/amyyu
- Instagram: amyyujh
