Wenbin Lyu is a Chinese composer based in Cincinnati. His compositions blend contemporary Western techniques with ancient Oriental culture, drawing inspiration from nature, science, and video games. His works have been featured at over 70 music festivals, such as Cabrillo, Tanglewood, NYCEMF, IRCAM, SEAMUS, and ICMC. He has collaborated with acclaimed ensembles, including the Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Beijing Symphony, Eighth Blackbird, Akropolis Quintet, and Sandbox Percussion. Lyu has received one ASCAP Young Composer Award and five The American Prize awards. He holds degrees from the China Conservatory, NEC, and CCM.

About the piece

Adlez for guitar and electronics was composed in the fall of 2020 during the lockdown. I got the idea for this piece from a video game poster that was behind my work desk The Legend of Zelda. Whenever I had a Zoom meeting and observed myself on my laptop, the poster would show “Adlez” instead of “Zelda”, and that’s how I randomly titled it. While writing this piece, I envisioned myself adventuring in this open-world game extensively. As a result, the piece is a perpetual motion with various colorful timbres. This work is also my first exploration and practice of the music programming language RTcmix, which I used to generate and process sound materials.