While she was still a student, her tragic opera
Nannan was showcased by the
New York City Opera's VOX, Contemporary Opera Lab.
Flown, a
chamber opera meditation on two lovers who must separate, was produced by the
Music Theatre Group, and the
Emily Dickinson-inspired
song cycle I Died for Beauty was featured at the
opening ceremony of the
Beijing Modern Music Festival. Her
piano trio,
Shadow, which dramatizes the inner life of an
autistic child, was performed by the
New Juilliard Ensemble as curtain-raiser for the
Museum of Modern Art's Summergarden concert series. As the first composer awarded the Milton Rock Fellowship prize, she was commissioned to compose the
environmentally aware ballet Five Phases of Spring for
Philadelphia's The Rock School for Dance Education, and her
Death of Socrates won the Northridge Composition Prize. Her
Symphony No. 1 (Awakening) was featured by the
Minnesota Orchestra at the 2010 Future Classics concert, and a new work is in process for the 45th anniversary celebration of Continuum at
Lincoln Center.
John Corigliano described
Symphony No. 1 (Awakening) as 'gorgeously written – she knows how to take a few notes and spin them into a large form – a rare trait in today's composers.
Robert Beaser described her work as of 'elegance and elemental clarity', the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review characterizing it as 'scrupulously crafted composition that embraces both Chinese and Western modern classical expression.'
From the Other Sky, awarded the
American Composers Orchestra's Underwood Commission, a 'charming multimedia-comic-opera-meets-song-cycle in four scenes'
premiered at
Carnegie Hall 15 October 2010 to positive notices such as that of
Steve Smith of
The New York Times, who noted the work's 'vibrant, polished' quality. In February 2012 Wang Jie was awarded the Charles Ives Scholarship of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. In July 2012 she was awarded the sixth annual Elaine Lebenhorn award of the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra. ==Personal life==