ABOUT

Dr. Pin-Hsin Lin is Composer, pianist, and educator.  Her English name is Crystal.

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Dr. Lin’s fun-loving, positive, and patient nature defines her both personally and professionally.  She teaches Piano and Composition.

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As a composer, Pin-Hsin Lin (中文名：林品妡) tells stories through her music. To establish a beautiful soundscape, she likes to combine both Eastern and Western musical cultures into her music.  Her new composition, "Cross the Line of Death," is programed by the Hear Now Music Festival 2023.  She was also awarded the first place of the 2021 Composers Today State Contest of California.

An award-winning composer, her music has been performed by the following groups:

American Composers Orchestra 

Peabody Symphony Orchestra 

Bridges East and West Music Festival of University at California Los Angeles 

“Music Of Taiwan 2013” of the Taiwanese American Sinfonia Organization 

SUONO MOBILE USA 

University of Illinois Percussion Ensemble 

Turks Head Knot (featuring horn soloist Adam Unsworth) 

VEM Quartet 

Liège Conservatory and Cor solo at Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège

Her music has also been performed at the following events and locations:

Sound Exchange Musical Festival at National Taiwan Normal University and Indiana State University

Bowdoin International Music Festival 

St. Magnus Festival 

Bard Festival, the Centrum Chamber Music Festival

Roosevelt University.

She has given composition analysis lectures at the following events:

Aspen Composers’ Conference 

Murray State University’s Athena Festival

University of Central Missouri’s New Music Festival.

Her essays have been published by California Music Teacher magazine and Aspen Composers’ Conference.

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She is also the recipient of the following awards:

2021 Composers Today State Contest of California.

two Peabody Career Development Grants

two New Music USA Composer Assistance Grants

Centrum Music Festival Scholarship

Bard Music Festival Scholarship

Bowdoin International Music Festival Scholarship

St. Magnus festivals.

Henry Mancini Fellowship

Powell Bucknell Scholarship

Herbet H. Wise Scholarship,

Honorable Mention by the Minnesota Orchestra

Honorable Mention by the Thomas Lee Composition Competition of UCLA Wind Ensemble.

Dr. Lin’s interest in composition also extends into experimental and collaborative works. In 2008 she composed Conceptual View of Complexity, in cooperation with dancers and computer scientists. This work was designed to help the physically disabled safely regain strength.  The artists used various sonorities to evoke different movements by the patients. 

Dancers recorded the video along with her composition, and the 3-D virtual reality version was made for the patients to follow.  This dance was performed and videotaped at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, titled Tele-immersive Environments for Everybody (TEEVE). 

In the same year, Dr. Lin was selected to participate in the St. Magnus Festival in Orkney, Scottland where her melodic piece Soaring Journey, inspired by Emily Dickinson’s “Hope Is Something With Feathers,” premiered. Her visit to the English countryside during the St. Magnus Festival inspired her next piece, Orkney Sunrise, which was performed by the Trio Capriccio at the Oro Valley United Church in Arizona.

Dr. Lin completed her PhD in composition at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2016.  She was able to finish her dissertation with the support of the Edna and Yu-Shan Han Endowed Award.  In her research, she further explored how colorful sounds were created by different tones coming from various tessituras, and how those sound resources reverberate in different sizes of space.  She had a formal appointment as a Teaching Fellow of music theory and music appreciation courses while there.  She continues to research about cross-cultural music.

Before attending UCLA, she earned her MM in Composition at The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and her BM in Composition at Roosevelt University. Her composition teachers included Ian Krouse, David Lefkowitz, Richard Danielpour, Nicholas Maw, Samuel Adler, and Claude Baker.

Dr. Lin grew up in Kaohsiung and Taipei, Taiwan. She is a member of Broadcast Music Inc (BMI), New Music USA, and Music Teachers Association of California (MTAC).  

She is a professional Certificate of Music Evaluator with MTAC.  She is also the director of the Crystal Music Academy in Arcadia, CA, where she offer diverse music lessons.