Tu Gu is a composer and cellist whose work centers on music for film, games, and other media. Originally trained as a classical cellist, he approaches scoring from inside the orchestra, thinking first about how a line feels under the hand before how it reads on the page. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Composition: Music Scoring for Visual Media at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, expected to graduate in May 2027.
Tu's recent work spans hybrid scores for advertising, sound design and orchestral scoring for animation, and chamber concert works. Selected projects include Devourer, a horror short film score premiered in April 2025, and Stop Hitting Your Sister, a stop-motion animation short scheduled for 2027. His writing draws on a classical harmonic vocabulary shaped by years inside the standard repertoire, paired with an interest in world music traditions, timbre design, and in how acoustic and synthesized material can be reframed through production.
Alongside linear scoring, Tu works actively in music for games and interactive media. He has scored projects with middleware integration in mind, including The Devouring Hour, an upcoming game slated for release in spring 2027, along with music written for game jams and other projects. The interactive side of his practice is grounded in the same compositional voice as his linear work, with attention to how a cue or a sonic gesture can hold up to being broken apart, looped, layered, and recombined in real time.
His work in this space also extends to sound design, including foley and effects for Devourer and a full audio implementation pass on a game project in Unreal Engine with FMOD, covering character, movement, environmental, and in-game interaction audio.
Tu also works in orchestration, music preparation, and engraving. As an orchestrator, he adapts and arranges material for recording sessions and live concert performances, balancing acoustic ensembles in studio and hall environments alike. He is skilled with notation tools and trained in the Hollywood copyist standard for recording-session score and part preparation, with experience across MIDI clean-up and a range of prep workflows. He welcomes orchestration, engraving, and part-prep collaborations on concert and media projects alike.
Tu began his musical training at age 11 at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, then completing high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, where he studied cello with Crispin Campbell and Dr. Patrick Owen and first studied composition with Dr. Cynthia Van Maanen. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under Richard Weiss, alongside composition study with Dr. Keith Fitch. He then pursued graduate studies in cello performance at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music under Ilya Finkelstein, before turning fully to composition. He has performed as a guest cellist with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in projects including Tan Dun's Buddha Passion and Lechang Chen's Ode to the Great Wind, and has given guest lectures on classical music topics in community settings.