YE XIAOGANG

b. 1955, Shanghai

Composer

Ye Xiaogang is one of the most active and best-known composers in China. He was admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music in 1978, where he studied composition with Du Mingxin. Ye joined the Central Conservatory’s composition faculty in 1983. In 1985, Ye became one of the first ‘New Wave’ composers to give concerts in Beijing. The programme included Horizon (Dipingxiang), scored for soprano, baritone and orchestra, among others of his works. This piece became one of the representative works of the New Wave Music.

Ye came to the United States in 1987 to pursue a master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music, where his teachers included Samuel Adler and Joseph Schwantner. His important works while in the United States include The Last Paradise, The Winter and The Silence of Sakyamuni, which won the ‘first-composition competition’ prize in Taiwan in 1992. In 1994, Ye returned to China to continue his teaching at the Central Conservatory. He received a number of high-profile commissions from the Chinese government, including the orchestral work The Story of Spring, the ballet The Story of Shenzhen, and most notably the Great Wall Symphony, written for voice, piano, Chinese instruments and orchestra. Ye is the leading advocate for the creation of contemporary music ensembles in China, and the founder of Ensemble Eclipse. He has served as Artistic Director of the China Contemporary Music Forum, an international modern music festival in Shanghai.

See also: Third Generation /composers