Born in Hong Kong, Dr. Adilia Yip is a marimbist/percussionist and artistic researcher based in Belgium. Her lyrical, unique marimba sound has led to diverse chamber music projects and collaborations with contemporary composers.
Active in both classical and contemporary music fields, she was invited by festivals, cultural organizations, music institutions and diplomatic units to present her marimba projects, such as 33rd Festival de Musica de Canarias, Belgian Music Days Leuven, aNOther Festival Vienna, Sfinks Mixed Festival Antwerp, TEDx, Bermeo Classical Music Festival Spain, Chinese Music Rocks! (Hong Kong), 5th International Clarinet Festival Gent, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Europe), and Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Belgium. In 2011, she has formed chamber music group "Duo Antwerp" with bass clarinetist Daniel Bellovi, which they have already commissioned, arranged and performed over 30 compositions for the exclusive duo combination.
Besides, her interests in traditional music have led to cross-cultural music collaborations with traditional African, Chinese, Japanese and Mexican musicians, such as the balafon and marimba duo Balafon Meets Marimba (2012-16); contemporary compositions for marimba and erhu (2017); ONNA project (2018) with Japanese taiko drummers and Chinese percussionist; and Motzu (2014-16) Mexican marimba ensemble. She has also founded "The Bracket Percussion" for multidisciplinary percussion projects. The ensemble has collaborated with Belgian installation and visual artists, puppeteers, actors and authors in different projects, such as Vlinders (2012-15) a puppet percussion-theater based on the Chinese romance The Butterfly Lovers; Mictlan (2015) a percussion-theatre based on the Mexican Aztec mythology of the underworld; and Malleus (2019) a performance on an installation of 200 hammers by Arnd Christian Müller.
Adilia has obtained her Doctoral in arts degree (PhD) at Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and University of Antwerp with artistic research project Inventing New Marimba Performance from the West African Balafon Practice, where she was employed by the same institute as research assistant (2015-16) and project officer (2012-14). She is also an alumnus of the Orpheus Institute, Ghent. Her research scopes encompass music embodiment, cross-cultural exchange, phenomenology, music practice and embodied performance experience. She has given lecture-recitals, masterclasses and presentations at Royal Conservatory Brussels, Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Escola superior de musica e artes do espetaculo Porto (ESMAE), Fontys Conservatorium Tilburg, University of California, San Diego, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Leeds and University of York, among others. Her articles are published on “Music + Practice” journal and artistic research related platforms.
