About

Wergo characterized Huihui Cheng’s portrait CD (2015-20) as “a blend of playful, mysterious, and otherworldly sounds,” reflecting her artistic journey during this period into what she termed “theatrically extended composition.” This involved integrating intermedia elements, delving into the visual aspects of music, infusing sound with theatrical depth, thus expanding the expressive possibilities of musical meaning. In many works, she incorporated elements such as costumes, lighting, or unconventional objects and action into her compositional palette, in order to explore alternative performance formats, freeing musicians from traditional constraints. Her performances occasionally embrace installation-based and audience-involved approaches, questioning the interplay of sound, movement, and space. By blurring the boundaries of traditional performance settings, Cheng’s innovations help bridging the gap between art and music, performer and audience.

Huihui Cheng studied composition with Guoping Jia at the Central Conservatory of Music Beijing, Caspar Johannes Walter, as well as Marco Stroppa and Piet Mayer (electronic music) at the State College of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart. In 2015/16 she attended the IRCAM Composition Cursus in Paris, studying with Héctor Parra (composition) and Grégoire Lorieux (electronics). 

She was a fellow of the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, Schloss Wiepersdorf, Künstlerhaus Schöppingen, Künstlerhaus Lukas, and SWR studio, Casa Baldi, Camargo Foundation, Royaumont Foundation and GMEM. She attended academies of the SWR Vocal Ensemble and the Akademie Musiktheater Heute. 

Her works have been performed at worldweise festivals such as the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Berlin Chinese Culture Festival, Munich Biennale, Tongyeong International Music Festival in Korea, Wien Modern Festival, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Eclat Festival Stuttgart, Wittener Kammermusik Festival, Klangzeit, Berlin Werkstatt, Rainy days Festival Luxemburg etc. 

She won first prize at the International Isang Yun Competition, and with her work “Me Du Ça”, she won the ZKM Giga-Hertz Production Prize in 2016, etc. 

During the last two years, she has participated in three distinct musical theaters: Freiburg Theater (Escape-Cerebral’s Rhapsody), Wilhelma Theater Stuttgart (Hans und Gretel), and Wien Musiktheater Tag (Kassandra). She will be writing a 30-minute opera as a part of “Neuen Szene VII” (International Composition Competition hosted by Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin) 2025.