While studying in the
Greater Los Angeles Area, Louie was a member of an ensemble, and later she taught
piano, theory, and electronic composition at
Pasadena College and
Los Angeles City College. One of her earliest compositions, completed in 1972, is an electronic piece for 4-channel tape entitled,
Molly. The object in this composition, based on the last segment of
James Joyce's novel
Ulysses, was to make an electronic composition sound "human." She created a number of piano compositions, including
Scenes from a Jade Terrace,
Distant Memories (dedicated to Jean Lyons) and
I Leap Through the Sky With Stars for solo piano,
Dragon Bells for prepared piano and pre-recorded prepared piano, and
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, which was commissioned by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Louie moved from Los Angeles to
Toronto in 1980. Soon after, in 1982, she composed
O Magnum Mysterium: In Memoriam Glenn Gould. She composed the opening music ("The Ringing Earth") for
Expo 86 in
Vancouver, and that year was named Composer of the Year by the Canadian Music Council. Louie has twice won a
Juno Award for Best Classical Composition: in 1989 for
Songs of Paradise (1984), and in 2000 for
Shattered Night, Shivering Stars (1997) - both are orchestral works. She has received several additional nominations for various works. Orchestral scores include
The Eternal Earth (commissioned by the
Toronto Symphony),
Music for a Thousand Autumns (commissioned by the Ensemble SMCQ) and
Music for Heaven and Earth (commissioned by the Esprit Orchestra). Louie's works of
chamber music include
The Distant Shore for piano trio,
Edges for string quartet, ''Music from Night's Edge
for piano quintet, Riffs
for oboe, clarinet and bassoon, and Gallery Fanfares, Arias and Interludes'' (commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1993). In 1990, 1992, and later in 2003, Louie received the SOCAN Concert Music Award for the most performed Classical composer of the year. In 1999 she won the
Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music for
Nightfall, a work for 14 strings written for
I Musici de Montreal.
The Scarlet Princess, which was premiered by the
Canadian Opera Company in 2002, is an erotic ghost story based on a 17th-century Japanese
Kabuki play. Her eight-minute comic mini-opera entitled,
Toothpaste (1995), based on a libretto by
Dan Redican, has been broadcast in more than a dozen countries. With Redican, Louie also completed
Burnt Toast, which consists of eight comic mini-operas for television, in 2005. She draws upon the music for the Queen of the Night aria, "
Der Hölle Rache", from
Mozart's
The Magic Flute, as well as music from
Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde.
Songs of Paradise was re-recorded by the
Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and Music Director
Geoffrey Moull in 2004, and subsequently released on the album,
Variations on a Memory. It became the best-selling disc of the Canadian Music Centre in 2005. Louie's composition
Three Fanfares from the Ringing Earth, was performed at the opening of the new
National Gallery of Canada in
Ottawa, and
Scenes from a Jade Terrace, opened the new Canadian Embassy in
Tokyo. Her
Infinite Sky With Birds, a
National Arts Centre commission, debuted on 22 February 2006. That year, she was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada. Louie's composition
Mulroney: The Opera, a musical satire of
Brian Mulroney's life, was released by
Alliance Films in April 2011. In 2013 her composition "Bringing the Tiger Down From the Mountain" was performed by the National Arts Centre Orchestra during their tour of China. Louie was honoured in 2019 by the
Honens International Piano Competition in
Calgary, which hosted a feature event of her compositions. ==Awards==