Shirley Ly is a self-taught contemporary classical music composer from Greenwich in London, United Kingdom, with Chinese and Vietnamese heritage. She began composing music when she was 15 and instantly fell in love with it, writing pieces whenever she feels inspired to do so for acoustic instruments. Her music has been played around half a million times across more than 100 countries around the world spanning six continents and is described to be a bridge between classical, romantic, and minimalist music with Eastern and jazz elements. She has performed her music across a variety of venues, including churches in London, and the Palace of Westminster, and will be performing in many more venues going forward.
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She has produced two albums, which feature 21 pieces composed for solo piano, duets, trios, and quartets - click for further details: Blossom (2021) and Impetus (2018).  Broadly, the pieces in the albums aim to capture her reflections on life experiences relating to nature (i.e., swallows' journeys to their nests, the seasons, swans), living in London, dance, relationships with family and other loved ones, travel (i.e. to Berlin, Amsterdam), and dreams. Shirley plays the piano in all of her pieces.

   

She is currently working on her third and fourth albums, 9 Pieces About Cats and Paradise, to be released in 2023. 9 Pieces About Cats consist of pieces inspired by her five mischievous cats in London. Paradise focuses on the beauty of the ocean and its diverse marine life. Through her experiences of swimming, diving, sailing, and surfing in the ocean, she has developed an intense admiration for the ocean. It is magnificent, refreshing, and incredibly humbling, and she hopes that her music can further emphasise its importance.  

​For Shirley, composing music helps with the discovery of self as it allows reflections to be expressed freely. She considers music to be very powerful as it can be shared, not only in a physical way where people can listen to it but in the sense that it evokes emotions, triggers memories, and makes the mind wander into an abyss of imagination. ​She sincerely hopes that her work shares in this sense with you. 

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Shirley has been supporting Sirius Animal Shelter, the largest animal shelter in Ukraine. Please join her in supporting the shelter by clicking this link.