Bio

Qiujiang Levi Lu / 卢秋江 is an experimental musician, composer, media artist, and creative technologist based in the United States. Described by I Care If You Listen as “brutally cohesive,” Lu’s practice moves across live performance, electroacoustic instrument design, installation, chamber and experimental composition, film scoring, and multimedia collaboration. Across these forms, Lu creates works in which tenderness and violence are held in the same body, using sound to transform listening into an encounter with vulnerability, force, and altered perception.

A central part of Lu’s work is the invention of self-made electroacoustic instruments that extend the body as a site of transhumanist sound-making. Their systems include cyborg-like augmentations such as intraoral microphone-speaker feedback instruments, amplified laptop interfaces, motion-sensing electronics, and custom performance tools designed for physical intensity and unstable sonic systems. Working with feedback, live processing, and sensor-based gesture, Lu creates performances in which technology feels intimate, unruly, and charged by the body.

Lu’s performances often unfold as ritual-inflected improvisations that bring Chinese cultural lineages into conversation with contemporary noise, experimental music, and embodied technology. Their work engages body dysmorphia, queerness, spirituality, and transformation, drawing audiences into a form of listening that can feel intimate, unstable, and unsettling. Whether performing with self-built instruments, writing for ensembles, or constructing immersive installations, Lu approaches sound as a material that can alter the relationship between body, identity, and environment.

As a collaborative musician and improviser, Lu is one half of Warp Duo, a Chinese-American experimental electronic act with violinist and improviser Scott Li. The duo combines cathartic performance with maximalist sound design and electroacoustic improvisation, and has created scores for numerous film projects. Their score for Whale 52 | Suite for Man, Boy, and Whale received major international recognition, with the film winning the Crystal Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2025 and the Best Sound Design Award at the One Fluid Night LGBTQIA+ Film Festival in 2026. Lu has also performed and collaborated internationally with artists including DoYeon Kim, Li-Chin Li, Ka Baird, Dennis Sullivan, BAKUDI SCREAM, Julian Pujols Quall, Camilo Angeles, Shannon Yu, Yang Sun, Cass Yao, and Drew Wesely.

A Second Prize winner of the International Electronic Music Competition in 2023, Lu’s work has been presented internationally at venues and festivals including MATA Festival, Send + Receive, High Zero Festival, IRCAM Forum, Threading Festival, and Temple Dongjingyuan. They have received commissions from TAK Ensemble, Popebama, and Luke Helker, along with support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants program, the Ernst & Young Emergent Futures Fellowship, and NEW INC. Lu has been an artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room, Harvestworks Technology Immersion Program, The New School, and Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm.

As an educator, Lu serves as a lecturer in music at the University of Pennsylvania, where their teaching connects experimental sound, music technology, performance, and creative coding. They have presented guest lectures, workshops, and performances at institutions including Stanford University CCRMA, Princeton University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Southern California, Zagreb Music Academy, Oberlin Conservatory, and Parsons School of Design. Lu holds a degree in Computer Music from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and a degree in Music Composition from Stony Brook University.