About
Andy Li is an award-winning Chinese American composer for theatre, opera, film, and contemporary classical based in New York City. He is the winner of the GCNA Franco Proposal Contest, for which he wrote St Anne’s Garden in a Fading Summer (University of Kansas – World Premiere), and a semifinalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards with his piece Acclimate. Among others, his works have been performed at Classic Stage Company, Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, Symphony Space, The Broom Tree Theatre, The Hudson Guild Theater, the Woolworth Chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery, 54 Below, The Green Room 42, Joe’s Pub, and The African Grove Theatre.
His musical The Garden Bridge (Classic Stage Company (Off-Broadway), The Broom Tree Theatre) written with librettist Jill Ohayon was awarded Best Score (Music and Lyrics) and Best Production at the SheNYC Summer Theater Festival (2025), and a recipient of the NYFA Queens Arts Fund: New Work Grant (2025), and the Mécénat Musica Prix Crowd (2025). It was also a nominee for Best New Musical (Off-Off-Broadway) at the BroadwayWorld Off-Broadway Awards (2025), a semifinalist for the O'Neill National Music Theater Conference (2026), and a finalist for several other developmental opportunities (Phoenix Theatre Company Festival of New American Theatre (2026), Aubrey and Marla Dan Fund for New Musicals (2024), The Lab Series at the Manhattan School of Music (2024)). It has been developed at The BringAbout with Jennifer Jancuska (2024), Resident Choreographer of Hamilton on Broadway, the Casa Uno Artist Residency in Costa Rica (2025), and Goodspeed Musicals (2024), as well as with actors Phillipa Soo and James Yaegashi. In addition to The Garden Bridge, he has written the short musical Birthday Presence (lib. Jill Ohayon), which was presented at Symphony Space as part of Prospect’s Musical Theater Lab (2025).
For opera, he has written two pieces for The American Opera Projects: What Do You See? (lib. Sravya Saraswatula), presented at the Woodlawn Cemetery (2025), and Tesserae (lib. Patrick Thompson), presented at The Hudson Guild Theater (2024). What Do You See? was also selected a semifinalist for One Ounce Opera's Fresh Squeezed Ounce of Opera (2026).
For film, he has composed original scores for Pasta (dir. Janey Feingold), Blank Canvas (dir. Xuecong Zhao) and Her Summer (dir. Yunye Chen). He is the sound designer for the audio drama Intrusive Thot (written by Sarah Rossman), which had its pilot episode broadcasted from the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow by RADIOPHRENIA (2025).
Li holds an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (NYU), a BM in Music for New Media: Film & Game Scoring (Peabody Institute), and BA degrees in French and Medicine, Science, and the Humanities (Johns Hopkins University). He is a member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, and MUSE.
