SCOTT LI is a NYC-based classically trained violinist, composer, performer, improviser, filmmaker, recording engineer, and sound artist blending the tonal Romantic chamber music tradition with emotive experimental ambient electronic music.
Hailed by The Crossfader as “one of the pioneers of the next generation’s classical music”, Li’s compositions fuse modular synthesis, live processing, fixed media, film, photography, dance, and prose with elements of classical chamber music to “create a simultaneous understanding of The Beautiful and The Sublime, while exhibiting unparalleled emotional induction.” (Téa Mottolese, The Crossfader, 2019)
Li is a frequent collaborator of a diverse group of musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, writers, and even dancers; in 2021, Li was commissioned by Vim Vigor Dance Company for the creation of “TOGETHER IS CLOSE ENOUGH”, a 30-minute site-specific installation dance piece which premiered at the University of Michigan Dance Department. Li is also the recipient of the 1st place Prix D’Été in 2019 for his seven-movement electroacoustic chamber work memoriae, featuring violin, cello, and electronics with samples from avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas’ magnum opus, As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty. Li has also scored a number of short films by fellow filmmakers Lukas Mackinney, Lingyu Yan, and Claire Zhang, as well as a number of original short films.
Li currently holds two undergraduate degrees from the Peabody Institute in Computer Music and Recording Arts. Li currently works at the Juilliard School of Music as an Audio Engineer.
Since 2020, Li has worked extensively with fellow composer and filmmaker Lukas Mackinney as a multifaceted sound artist/technician scoring, mixing, and designing sound for film. Li himself is also an accomplished filmmaker, with a number of short films published on YouTube. Further film collaborations have included the score for Mackinney’s 2020 capstone project “Polaroids from the Death of America” and various short films with NYC-based writer, designer and visual artist Claire Zhang. As a composer, Li has collaborated with Vim Vigor Dance Company in the creation of “TOGETHER IS CLOSE ENOUGH”, a fixed media piece performed in 2021 at the University of Michigan Dance Department. In May of 2022, Li premiered a new commission from New World Symphony fellow Eli Pandolfi featuring text and narration by Claire Zhang, film from Lukas Mackinney, and live-processed chamber french horn, violin, and percussion.
Li’s 25-minute electroacoustic chamber work "memoriae" was the 1st-place recipient of 2019 Prix D'Ete competition at the Peabody Institute for electroacoustic chamber works achieving novel forms of musical expression.