Born in 2002 in Shanghai, China, Junqi Wan is currently completing her Bachelor's of Music in Composition degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Her teachers include Dr. Oliver Iredale Searle and Professor Alistair MacDonald. Shortly after, she will commence her Master's of Music in Composition studies at the Juilliard School.
Junqi's compositional interests include integrating visuals with music, achieved through creating original graphic scores and collaborating with visual artists. As a performer of a variety of both Eastern and Western instruments, including piano, guzheng, saxophone, zhudi, and guqin, she explores the fusion of musical instruments and styles from these two distinct cultures, examining how their often contrasting aesthetics may coexist harmoniously within her compositions.
In 2020, her clarinet solo piece titled "Jiangnan" was performed at the PLUG2020 New Music Festival. In March 2021, her sonic arts project "Imaginary," created for the digital installation art by the V^ Art Team, was exhibited at the Museum of the Future New Media Art Exhibition in Shenzhen, China. It was later showcased at the VRHAM! Virtual Reality & Arts Festival in Hamburg, Germany in June of the same year. Continuing their collaboration, in July, another audio-visual artwork titled "Melting Consciousness" was displayed at the 50th Sehsüchte International Student Film Festival in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany. Moving to 2022, her composition "It's Easy, To Write, A Poem" for solo cello and electronics premiered at Stirling University by the Edinburgh Quartet.
From January 7 to April 2, 2023, her collaborative audio-visual interactive artwork "19Hz," developed with visual artists from the V^ Art Team and marine earth scientists from the Deep Sea Light Team, was exhibited at the 2022 Jinan International Biennale in Jinan, Shandong, China, receiving The 20 Most Attention-Grabbing Works award. Later, "19Hz" was also exhibited from February 12 to April 12, 2023, at the First Shanghai International Digital Art Fair in Shanghai, China. The "19Hz" project won the 2022 Zhihu Beacon Prize, receiving funding of up to one million yuan for its future development and commissions for new audio-visual installation arts.
In May 2023, two of her compositions premiered at PLUG2023: "Embattled" for solo guzheng and live electronics, which she performed herself, and "Stimmen des Kreuzwegs" for string quintet performed by the RedNote ensemble. After receiving the Zhihu Beacon Prize, from November 25 to 30, 2023, she composed five sonic arts pieces for a series of new installation works by the V^ Art Team and the Deep Sea Light Team. These works were exhibited at the Blue Planet Sci-Fi Film Festival Art Unit - "Sea Begins Here" Marine Science Art Exhibition in Nanjing, China. Additionally, she was tasked with the sound design for the exhibition.
In April 2024, the first movement of her orchestral work, "Thousand-Mile Rivers and Mountains," was rehearsed and recorded by the RCS Symphony Orchestra.
Junqi's musical journey began at the age of three when she enrolled in a digital keyboard class. A year later, she began taking weekly one-to-one piano lessons with Ms. Lili Huang and started her annual visits to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music for art grade examinations, a tradition that continued tirelessly for twelve years. At six, she started to learn the guzheng in weekly seminar classes with Ms. Yun Shao. She passed the tenth, which is the highest grade in the arts grade examination for the piano at eleven and for guzheng at thirteen.
At the age of eleven, Junqi enrolled at Shanghai No.3 Girls' Middle School, where she was recommended by the school's wind orchestra instructor, Ms. Qian Zhu, to take up the alto saxophone. Under the tutelage of Mr. Min Zhang, saxophonist and the conductor of the wind orchestra at Shanghai University, she rapidly progressed and attained eighth grade within a year. Subsequently, she joined the wind orchestra conducted by Mr. Xianming Yu. Over the course of three years, Junqi dedicated herself to the orchestra, engaging in rigorous three-hour rehearsals twice a week, and became the principal saxophonist in 2016. Additionally, she attended saxophone masterclasses, and received one-to-one tutorials with Mr. Min Zhang on a weekly basis. In the following two years, she passed the tenth and the performance grade for alto saxophone.
Since joining the wind orchestra, Junqi began participating in regular performances and competitions, both within Shanghai and internationally. In June 2016, as the principal saxophonist, she played a pivotal role in the school's reproduction of Les Miserables, performing solos in numerous key sequences. This project engaged over 220 students from Shanghai No.3 Girls' School, including the Wind Orchestra, the Percussion Ensemble, the iPad Orchestra, and the Drama Club. The show attracted over 2,000 attendees.
Later in July 2016, Junqi attended the 2016 Music in the Summer Air festival, and performed Debussy's Petite Suite arranged for saxophone ensemble in the Shanghai Symphony Hall. In October, she performed within the wind orchestra at the Shanghai International Marathon Music Station. In 2017, Junqi traveled to the United States with the wind orchestra, performing in several events. These included parades at the Independence Day celebrations in Washington, an outdoor concert in Baltimore, a flash mob held in the halls of Washington's Union Station, the Serenade! Washington, D.C. Choral Festival at the Kennedy Center, and a side-by-side session with Broadway band.
Junqi enrolled in ULink College of Shanghai in 2017 and joined the school's orchestra. She performed in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 ULink Shanghai Spring Concerts held at the He Luting Concert Hall of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. During these two years, she also took up the zhudi as a new instrument and achieved fourth-grade proficiency within three months of study.
Throughout Junqi's high school years, she briefly diverted her focus from music to pursue A-level courses, including Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Physics, Economics, Computer Science, and Drama. Developing a strong interest in Economics and Finance, she participated in several competitions, including the 2018 Future Business Leaders of America Competition in Baltimore, and the 2019 National Economics Challenge China Finals in Suzhou.
Despite believing for years in high school that she would become an economist, in May 2019, Junqi made a spontaneous and emotionally driven decision to pursue music at the university level, opting for composition without much consideration or reasoning. She began her studies under Mr. Jiayi Huang and applied after only four months of preparation. Junqi received offers from six universities and conservatoires, ultimately accepting an offer from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she spent the next four years studying music composition.