Raymond Yiu

About Raymond Yiu

Raymond Yiu is a Hong-Kong born, London-based composer, jazz pianist, conductor and writer on music. He is the winner of a BASCA British Composer Award for his ensemble work Northwest Wind, and was nominated for the same award in 2004 (Beyond the Glass), 2012 (Les Etoiles au Front), 2013 (The London Citizen Exceedingly Injured) and 2018 (Mielo). Originally trained as an engineer, Yiu was self-taught as a composer until undertaking a DMus with Julian Anderson at Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2009.

During his early career Yiu’s music was championed by American composer-pianist-conductor Lukas Foss and he has gone on to work with international ensembles and artists including the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, London Sinfonietta, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and Lang Lang.

The music theatre work The Original Chinese Conjuror, with a libretto by Lee Warren, was commissioned by Aldeburgh Almeida Opera and has since been presented at the Musikverein by Teatro Barroco, Left Bank Opera with Northern Opera Group. Yiu has also written a large number of orchestral works. Symphony, described as “hugely impressive” in The Guardian, was premiered at the 2015 BBC Proms with countertenor Andrew Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner. Written for baritone Roderick Williams, The World Was Once All Miracle received its first performance at the 2017 Manchester International Festival with the BBC Philharmonic. The following year, Williams gave the London premiere with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis, and the work was subsequently nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Large-Scale Composition (2018).

More recently the Hong Kong Philharmonic commissioned Old Bei to commemorate 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth and his Violin Concerto, co-commissioned by BBC Radio 3, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony, was given its world premiere by soloist and dedicatee Esther Yoo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Clemens Schuldt in March 2024 to critical acclaim. The work received its Asian and North American premieres the following year.

In 2021 Delphian released a debut portrait disc of Yiu’s orchestral works performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra garnering widespread praise and the Presto Music Editor’s Choice Award.

Yiu is a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Composition, published in May 2024, and Professor of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music.   

Raymond Yiu Website