Moni (Jasmine) Guo
Asst Professor
Assistant Professor of Commercial Music Production
Emery Hall
2160A
CCM Commercial Music Production -
Professional Summary
Moni (Jasmine) Guo is film composer, contemporary concert composer, and classical pianist. She has appeared as both a performer and composer in Asia, Europe, South America, Canada, and the United States.
As a film composer, Jasmine has scored over forty short films, with many showcased in renowned film festivals like AFI Fest, FIRST International Film Festival (China), Atlanta Film Festival, CAAM Fest, Cannes' American Pavilion, the LA Shorts International Festival. Her scored films have been distributed and streamed by The New Yorker, DUST, Omeleto, amc+, and Jiloo. Notably, the short film Summer Ends, which she has scored, was nominated for the Student Academy Awards of 2021, and she received a nomination for Best Soundtrack in a Short Film at the Seattle Film Festival of 2022 for de closin night. The feature film, Pianoman (dir. Sunny Liu), which she has recently scored, has just won the Best Feature Documentary at the Nepal America International Film Festival of 2023. Her semi-improvisation score for the silent feature film Enchantment (dir. Robert Vignola, 1921), which she also performed as the pianist, was commissioned by and showcased at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Jasmine has previously served as the assistant to film composer Sharon Farber. Films she has helped with orchestrating and music preparation have been broadcasted on Lifetime, and have been screened at festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.
Jasmine’s concert compositions have been performed by acclaimed soloists and ensembles worldwide, including Michael Kannen, Bella Hristova, David Kaplan, Jihye Chang, Stefano Greco, IIIZ+, Deviant Septet, The Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, The CIM Symphony Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Known for her passion to use music to encourage and comfort people, she also hopes to use her work to bridge Western and Eastern culture.
A member of The Pi Kappa Lambda Society, ASCAP, The SCL, and AWFC, Jasmine has been the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships, including being the winner of the TNME student composition competition in 2018, 2nd place in the American Prize competition in 2020, named the recipient of the 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Award. She has also been selected by the ACO Earshot 2023 as one of four composers to have works recorded by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2023. Her piece "Fallen Skin, Flying Wings" has been performed at the Hear Now Festival in Los Angeles, Summer of 2021, at the concert: nova—Made in Cincinnati, Summer of 2023, and at the California Festival 2023. In 2023, Jasmine was selected by Forbes China as the 100 Most Influential Chinese. Jasmine was also one of the six composers selected by the League of American Orchestras, in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra, to write a new piece as part of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program.
Beginning her musical journey at the age of three, Jasmine continued her musical education at the Interlochen Arts Academy, The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (BM), Rice University (MM), and UCLA (PhD). Her extensive study includes composition studies under Samuel Adler, Shih-hui Chen, Richard Danielpour, Jason Eckardt, Peter Golub, Michael Hersch, Pierre Jalbert, Ian Krouse, Amy Kirsten, Cynthia Van Mannen, and Kay Rhie. She has also had various masterclasses with composers such as James Newton Howard, Steven Stucky, Shulamit Ran, George Lewis, Christopher Rouse, music editor Adam Smalley, among others.