ABOUT ME

Duoni Liu, born in Shanghai, China, is a composer, performer, media artist, instrumentalist and mother, currently based in Bielefeld and Cologne, Germany.

She completed her studies in electronic composition (Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees) at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and also studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo with Trond Reinholdtsen. Since 2023, she has been continuing her education at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. A four-time DAAD scholarship recipient, she has also been awarded a special prize by the Gender Equality Commission as an outstanding young composer, along with recognition for an exceptional project addressing gender inequality. As an instrumentalist, she performs on the Chinese instrument erhu and has appeared alongside musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic.

In her previous work, Duoni focused on psychoacoustics in music and the relationship between the actual musical content and audience perception—addressing the theme of perception versus reality. Her main topics include gender inequality, the environment, and technology, and most of her projects are interdisciplinary.

Duoni’s works have been presented in a variety of contexts. In her first year of study, she was invited to present one of her works at Cologne’s Museumsnacht. She subsequently performed at the Acht Brücken Festival, PASSAGEN Design Week, the Cologne Philharmonie, and multiple events of the Cologne Society for New Music. She composed the music for the art video “Should Disabled People Buy Organic Eggs”, which was nominated for the 65th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2019). Her piece “SAME SAME but Different” was selected for the closing concert of the 2020 International Composition Competition by ACHT BRÜCKEN KÖLN and won third prize. The interdisciplinary project “Oops! I dropped my seeds”, led by her, was selected for the final concert in the D-Bü 2020 competition in Hamburg and won the Originality Prize.

In 2021, the video works were also exhibited at the He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, named after one of China’s most significant female artists, as part of the exhibition “In Working: Women in Art Practice.” Her art video “I don’t know what it means that I feel so sad” was selected for the MuVi International Programme at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2025. Her multimedia works have been shown at Copenhagen Contemporary, Fotoszene Köln, Kunstmuseum Solingen, Kunsthaus Monheim, Theater an der Ruhr and during the Nacht der Lichtkunst in Fröndenberg.