Max Lu Among Winners of ASCAP Young Composers Awards 2022

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) announced the winners of the 2022 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Max Lu, a 20-year-old Chinese American composer, is among the 23 winners of the Awards with his composition “Shatter – for orchestra.”

^{Winners of the 2022 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards
(Max Lu is 1st from right in the second row from above)}

The Morton Gould Young Composer Awards was created in 1979. The winners must be American citizens, permanent residents, or holders of student visas in the U.S. at or below 30 years old. One of the judging panel members for the Award is Man Fang, and Max Lu’s first composition teacher is Yiming Wu, both of whom have won the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award in 2007.

In addition, Max also won the NYO-USA composition award in 2020, which is jointly held by the Carnegie Hall and the National Youth Orchestra and given to only two winners nationwide. In his high school years, Max won several other important national and international composition awards, including the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York (MYO) award, the American Prize, and “Sounds of Children’s Rights” composition award in Austria.

Max is majoring in computer science at the Columbia University while also studying composition at the Julliard School with Professor Andrew Norman, who is the winner of many prestigious music awards, including Pulitzer, Grammy, and Grawemeyer.

_{Max Lu (1st from left) and Professor Andrew Norman (3rd from left)}

Max believes STEM subjects and music are complementary: musical creativity can enhance the study of STEM subjects and improve communication skills.

He said of his music journey: “It is easy to talk about composition, but it is hard to do it. While composing, I would restart many times before finalizing the things I wanted to write. I will not give up until I find creative inspiration. As a young composer, I find that everything around me, such as composition technique or style, is quickly changing. The more I make my efforts, the more happiness I reap from my work. I will keep pursuing the things I love.”

He balances his life with academic studies, daily life, and extracurricular activities. He is now working with a ballet choreographer on a string quartet while writing an electronic music piece for a movie’s soundtrack. His winning piece for the Morton Gould award will receive its premiere in the fall semester of 2022.

_{Max with his composition teacher Yiming Wu, founder of the Mayflower Art Center}

Max is also the head of the Mayflower Art Center’s youth program. Mayflower Art Center is a professional organization founded by Yiming Wu and is dedicated to the search, assistance and promotion of talented young composers. The Center will hold a public concert in New York City this November, in which Max is expected to present some of his works.