Composer for Film, Television and Games
TAO LIU SCORES HIT SERIES THE IDEAL CITY
August 28, 2021
An ideal city won't be so ideal without some good music. Tao Liu's score for Sun Li's new 40-episode urban workplace drama is something you'd want to listen to, especially when facing difficulties at work.
WANG SHUO'S FIRST SCI-FI TO HIT CINEMAS EARLY 2021
November 11, 2020
Wang Shuo, a well-known author, and novelist has finally revealed his long-awaited new screenplay, Bu Lao Qi Shi, to his fans.
Having been deeply fascinated by the score of Wu Wen Xi Dong, director Chao Xu made Tao Liu his first choice to score Bu Lao Qi Shi.
Bu Lao Qi Shi is going to cinemas on Jan. 22nd, 2021. Story by legendary screenwriter Wang Shuo(In the Heat of the Sun) along with Wu Ti(Wandering Earth). The film stars Wang Chuan-Jun(Die to survive) and Wang Luodan(Struggles). Directed by Chao Xu.
TAO LIU'S MUSIC WAS HEARD
ALL OVER THE NEW WORLD
February 11, 2020
A 70 episode TV series is not something you see every day, and is certainly a tough test for its post production team. Tao Liu wrote over 300 minutes of music in 2 months and, with help from music editor and score producer Yu Fei, successfully filled all episodes with carefully tailored music.
PIXAR GETS A TASTE ON EASTERN MUSIC
July 16, 2018
Animators from Pixar never stops trying to get a grip on the cultures from different worlds, be it Mexico (Coco), France (Ratatouille), or Scotland(Brave). And they certainly won't miss it when Tao Liu, along with Tingting Liu, brought their deeply Chinese-culture-oriented animation First Bloom to the Pixar campus in Emeryville, CA.
From Pipa to Dizi, from Sanxian to Gu Zheng, Tao's music covers a full range of exotic musical instruments. Dramatically enhanced by a western orchestra, those ancient instruments shone brightly in a modern film score.
BREAKING THE 4TH WALL
June 18, 2019
Director Zhang Chong and Zhang Bo brought their imaginative collaboration The 4th Wall to the audience during the First Film Festival of Xi Ning and received more than very well.
The film's protagonist, Liu Lu is leading a dreary and seemingly mundane life, working at a deer breeding farm. A friend, Ma Hai, keeps trying in vain to win her affections. It's as if she's isolating and banishing herself from any kind of human warmth or love. Ma Hai confesses he knows another Liu Lu and his another self in a 'parallel world'. The more she learns about the other 'her', the more Liu Lu uncovers about the long suppressed memories from her past.
Tao's score features a solo cello, ranging from ominous, unsettling drone to lyrical, pleasant idyll. Accompanied by a full Orchestra from Budapest, the score connects different time and space seamlessly throughout the story.
IGNITE THE JUPITER!
Feb 10, 2019
The Wandering Earth marked a milestone of Chinese Sci-Fi blockbusters. Although far from perfect and widely criticized for some of its values (i.e. sacrificing half of the human population on earth for a "bigger common good in the far future 100 generations away") and flawed science, it got a huge box-office success, bringing in over 700 million USD or 4.6 billion RMB in revenue.
The audience's adrenaline was stirred when Tao's music resonates loudly during a provocative scene in which the team led by the young hero Liu Qi decides to ignite the mixture gas of Oxygen and Hydrogen and use the explosion to help push the earth away from falling into Jupiter. Sounds easy enough, right? 2nd-year middle school chemistry. Although in reality, giving the huge mass of the earth, even if you burn out all oxygen on earth, and transform all the energy to kinetic, it can hardly slow the earth's fall if at all, let alone the idea of helping escape from a giant planet's gravity field. But most of the audience chooses to ignore that and submerge themselves in the score and the emotional moment.
SOMETHING IS FOREVER YOUNG
Jan. 09, 2018
When you look at a film titled Wu Wen Xi Dong, which literally means "Don't ask if it's west or east", you don't immediately know what it's about. But when you noticed that the film has top stars like Ziyi Zhang, Chang Chen, Leehom Wang, Xiaoming Huang, and many more, you know it's not an ordinary production.
The film is about the century-long history of Tsinghua University, the very best university in China. Founded with the refund of boxer indemnity in 1911, the university had gone through some turbulent times in China's modern history. It's not some usual historical films where you have a voice-over ranting non-stop about how magnificent all those important events are. Rather, writer-director Fangfang Li cleverly wrapped those events into 4 interconnected and heart-touching stories.
Got on board from as early as 2015, Tao has written over 200min music materials for the film over years of the post-production process. Using an early-romanticism approach, the score helps the film express it's core values -- sincerity, justice, bravery, and empathy. Those were the values that took deep root in the beliefs of generations of Tsing Hua students, regardless of their western or eastern origins, thus Wu Wen Xi Dong, and are also what will be forever young among humanity.
TAO LIU PRODUCES BRUCE WILLIS MOVIE SCORE THE BOMBING WITH LSO AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS
Oct. 2, 2016
A full 80 piece London Symphony Orchestra plus Abbey Road Studios. That's the very best combination you can get for a film score. Films with this deluxe dream team include Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Shape of Water, Braveheart and many more.
Commissioned by Mr. Liguang Wang, Tao Liu is going to produce a score for a Bruce Willis film with the exact same team with all these legendary films.
Film Score Engineer veteran Robert "Bobby" Fernandez is attached on this project as the main scoring mixer.
"I'm very familiar with that stage" Bobby said, "You can get absolutely amazing result from it." Having been the chief engineer of Warner Brother's Clint Eastwood Scoring Stage for years, and recorded at all major studio around the world, Bobby certainly knows a lot about scoring stages.
DON'T LET YOUR DREAMS SLIP AWAY
February 23, 2017
Inspired by a true story, the film Slipaway depicted a spirited elderly widow who invites a homeless, drug-addicted musician to stay with her on her vintage sailboat, the two must overcome their differences and haunting pasts to realize that each holds the key to the other's life dream.
- It could also be about chasing your dreams.
- Don't you think that's a bit too cheesy?
- Cheesy? Guess my whole life has been cheesy.
Tao wrote an emotional score for the film with a quintet of piano and strings. The film has won numerous awards in dozens of film festivals and got a Best Score award whenever the festival has this category (sadly most of the festivals don't have a Best Score section).