Yurui "Rain" Hou

Runner-up in the 2025 John Eaton Memorial Competition
Member since 2025

In five years, composer RAIN HOU sees herself in a cozy apartment in New York City’s Soho, walking a Bernese Mountain Dog, and living in musical creation. At the age of 20, she is currently in her sophomore year in New York City, majoring in creative writing and minoring in music at Columbia University. She also studies composition with Melinda Wagner at the Juilliard School. Her works have been selected as the finalist of the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Competition, the second-place winner of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival Quartet Composition Competition 2024, and the first-place winner of the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival 2024 Composition Contest. While she’s soaking up the intense learning of her second year, her go-to activity is spending Saturdays at Village Vanguard listening to jazz. Feeding from her diverse tonal palette, Rain’s music is quirky, kaleidoscopic, and has a big personality. Growing up in a big Chinese city and constantly traveling between the U.S and her hometown, she is constantly inspired by different landscapes. She has written works about the monsoon rainstorms in Shanghai, noises in New York City, and flickering street lamps.