Bio

Yu Shi | Composer & Creative Entrepreneur

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Drawn from Stravinsky’s adage “Restriction sets you free,” Yu Shi sees herself as both an interdisciplinary composer and a creative entrepreneur. Her work moves fluidly between the rigor of orchestration and the intuition of improvisation, between concert halls and film sets, always rooted in the belief that limitations can spark the most original expressions.

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Born and raised in China, Yu began playing piano at the age of five. She later studied composition under Dr. Raymond Lustig and Dr. Conrad Cummings at The Juilliard School evening division in New York City. Her musical language is shaped by the ongoing dialogue between Eastern and Western sensibilities—an undercurrent that flows through everything she creates, from contemporary classical works to cinematic scores and cross-genre collaborations.

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Yu’s career spans a wide range of formats: she has composed for award-winning documentaries (For the Good of All), feature films (Clash), television dramas (Born to Run, Bank on Me), and web series across platforms like CCTV, Tencent, and Amazon. Her music has been recorded by world-class orchestras in Budapest and performed live in New York, Italy, and beyond. She is also the founder of the pop band Apollo and an active participant in the Los Angeles creative community.

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Before fully committing to her life in music, Yu earned a Master’s in Finance in Chicago and spent six years on Wall Street, including at Goldman Sachs. Today, she brings that same strategic rigor to her creative work, combining intuition with systems thinking. She now helps fellow creators structure their financial lives through Soul Wealth, an innovative advisory practice supporting high-integrity artists and freelancers.

 

Based in Los Angeles, Yu continues to score films, mentor emerging composers, and develop original projects at the intersection of music, meaning, and sustainable creative careers.