The composers

The Composers

Tan Dun

Tan Dun’s compositions have been performed by internationally renowned orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonics and the Boston Symphonic Orchestra. During the past few years, he has received commissions from the Metropolitan Opera NY and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Tan Dun, who lives in New York, has conducted major orchestras in the USA and elsewhere, such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has also worked with musicians like Yo-Yo Ma. His orchestral works combine childhood memories of Shamanist rituals with western symphonic music and sounds from the world of nature. His operas include his version of the Peony Pavilion, premièred at the Vienna Festival, as well as internationally famous film music, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Critic Mary Lou Humphrey wrote of Tan Dun’s 12-minute Concerto for Six: ‘A light-hearted piece, like a dance: it reminds you of the merry atmosphere of a village festival.’

Guo Wenjing

Guo Wenjing, professor at Beijing Conservatory, received international acclaim for his operas, especially for his composition Wolf Club Village, based on Diary of a Madman. Le Monde compared the opera with Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Shostakovich’s The Nose. Guo Wenjing taught himself to play the violin as a small boy. His musical roots include Sechuan folk music. His large orchestral works, in which Chinese percussion and bamboo flute, Tibetan sounds, the piano and the harp also play an important role, have been characterised as ‘subtle and unusual’ (F.A.Z.) and ‘intensive and lively’ (The Guardian, London).

Ye Xiaogang

Ye Xiaogang commutes between Beijing, where he lectures and serves as composer-in-residence at the Conservatory, and Exton in Pennsylvania. He writes symphonic works, chamber music and film music, and has also curated his own festival for contemporary music in the Chinese capital. His work The Song of the Earth, written for soprano and orchestra, was premièred there at the beginning of 2005. For this piece, Ye used the original Chinese text that also inspired Gustav Mahler when he was composing his eponymous symphony. Ye Xiaogang’s most recent work, the Ling Nan Suite, which draws on Cantonese folk tunes, was premièred at the Carnegie Hall, New York, last autumn, and is now touring the world. Writing about Nine Horses, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik described Ye Xiaogang as ‘the greatest champion of the struggle to liberate music from doctrines hostile to art’.

Qu Xiasong

Qui Xiaosong has returned to China after living in New York for ten years. He now teaches at Shanghai Conservatory. He began his musical career as a violinist in a Beijing Opera ensemble. He studied in Beijing and then in the USA, where he intensively studied the works of John Cage. He has composed commissioned works for orchestras and festivals in Brussels, Munich, Paris, London, Cincinnati and other cities. His works include the music for the choreography of the Cloud Gate Theatre Taiwan and percussion concerts for Hong Kong and Taipei; operas such as Death of Oedipus as well as guitar solos. Pianist Roger Woodward, describes Qu Xiaosong’s music as crystal clear, and conveying the tenderness of a magical chamber music of the kind one finds in Feldman, Takemitsu, Messiaen, Debussy, Chopin, Schubert and Mozart.’

Composer, novelist and singer. She was born into a ‘large family’ which fell out of favour during the Cultural Revolution. She sought links with pop, rock, blues, jazz, and traditional, non-academic music. She has composed the first Chinese rock opera, writes for theatre and dance productions, and also composes film music. Liu Sola lived in the USA and London for fifteen years. She recently returned to Beijing. She regularly does radio broadcasts, has brought out many CDs in the USA and China, and several books in China.

Chen Yi

Chen Yi is one of the best-known composers of contemporary music on the international stage. After studying at Beijing Conservatory, she gained her doctorate at Columbia University and now lives in the USA. She was professor and composer-in-residence in San Francisco and Baltimore. Chen Yi has composed many commissioned works for American and international foundations, institutions and orchestras. During the last few years, her works have been performed in Hong Kong and the Carnegie Hall, in Singapore and at the Royal Albert Hall. An evening was also devoted to her orchestral and choral works, performed by the China Symphony Orchestra at Beijing Concert Hall. The magazine Chamber Music described her composition Qi as an overwhelming work, a tonal description of the forces of life.

Zhou Long

Zhou Long studied at Beijing Conservatory. He later won a number of awards, including the first prize in a national competition for composition in 1985, and became composer-in-residence for China’s National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. After receiving a fellowship at Columbia University, he remained in the USA, where he has been living for twenty years now. His works have meanwhile been performed by many internationally renowned orchestras and institutions. Zhou Long continues to draw on tradition and also experiments with traditional instruments, performance techniques and sounds. He compares the integration of western music into his essentially Chinese compositions with the assimilation of Buddhist principles into Chinese culture during the Tang Dynasty. ‘The reciprocal stimulation of tone qualities, material and techniques and – at a deeper level – cultural heritage create challenging works.’

Chen Qigang

Chen Quigang went to Paris after receiving awards in Beijing. In Paris, he studied under Olivier Messiaen, who praised the ‘intelligence’ and the ‘poetry’ of his works. His compositions include choreographies such as that for the New York company of Michael Mao, orchestral works such as Reflet d’un temps disparu, which was premièred by Yo Yo Ma and the Orchestre National de France, and the ballet Raise the Red Lantern (after the eponymous film directed by Zhang Yimou), which was performed by the Chinese National Ballet of Beijing. Chen Qigan writes of Voyage d’un rêve: ‘For me, this composition was an attempt to break free from the concepts of a “musical modernism” that had become more or less ossified.’

Zhang Lida

Zhan Lida studied the violin in Mongolia before she received a place at the Beijing Conservatory. On finishing her studies, she did music-ethnological research in Tibet and other places. She has very wide-ranging interests. Zhan Lida is now professor at the Beijing Conservatory. She mostly composes large symphonic works for the National Symphony Orchestra of China and film music, such as Shadow Magic, which vividly conveys the encounter between western and Chinese music and culture at the beginning of the last century, taking the example of film and Beijing Opera.