Meet the Creator
Annie Liu is a PhD student in musicology at Princeton University. She received her MA in Musicology, MM in Bassoon Performance and a Certificate in New Media and Culture from the University of Oregon in 2024. She received her BS in General Science and BMA in Bassoon Performance from Penn State University as a Schreyer Honors Scholar in 2021. Annie is the current Project Manager and a Research Assistant for Music Theory in the Plural.
As a 2022-23 inaugural Cykler Song Scholar, she researched shidaiqu or “songs of the times” and created this website as a public musicology resource about Shanghai popular song. Her research interests include Chinese music, timbre, music cognition, and new media. She is especially interested in the intersection between politics, power, mass media, and Chinese music in the twentieth century.
Outside of academics, Annie enjoys traveling, visiting coffee shops, playing the bassoon, training for triathlons, and hanging out with her cat, Mouse.
Publications
Liu, Annie Y. and Zachary Wallmark. “Identifying Peking Opera Roles through Vocal Timbre: An Acoustical and Conceptual Comparison between Dan and Laosheng.” Music & Science 7. https://doi.org/10.1177/20592043241278450
Nichols, Bryan E. and Annie Y. Liu. “Starting Pitch is Precise in Exploratory Study of Collegiate Non-Music Majors.” UPDATE: Applications of Research in Music Education 40, no. 2 (2021): 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/87551233211040726
Online posts
Liu, Annie Y. “The Scholar’s Take: Annie Liu on ‘A Conversation with Laufey’.” The Scholar’s Take, October 2, 2024. https://gradfutures.princeton.edu/news/2024/scholars-take-annie-liu-conversation-laufey
Liu, Annie Y. “China Nights: Li Xianglan and Japanese Propaganda Films.” Women’s Song Forum, February 7, 2023. https://www.womensongforum.org/2023/02/07/china-nights-li-xianglan-and-japanese-propaganda-films/
Liu, Annie Y. “Bassoon Rebranding: Tomasi’s Cinq Danses Profanes et Sacrées.” ACTOR Project: Amazing Moments in Timbre, February 24, 2022. https://timbreandorchestration.org/writings/amazing-moments-in-timbre/2022/2/24/cinque-danses-profanes-et-sacrees
selected Presentations
Liu, Annie Y. “Timbre in Translation: Applying Chinese Timbre Semantic Descriptors to Shidaiqu.” Presentation at the Analysis of World Musics and Timbre and Orchestration Joint Interest Group Meeting at the Society for Music Theory Conference, Jacksonville, FL, November 7–10, 2024.
Liu, Annie Y. “Shanghai Nights: The Cultural Politics of Vocal Timbre in 20th-Century Chinese Popular Music.” Presentation at American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory joint national conference, Denver, CO, November 9–12, 2023.
Liu, Annie Y.*, and Zachary Wallmark. “Identifying Peking Opera Roles through Vocal Timbre: An Acoustical and Conceptual Comparison between Dan and Laosheng” (Revised). Presentation at International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition 17, Tokyo, Japan, August 24–28, 2023.