Sheng (b 1955) is a new style Chinese composer who first trained as a pianist and then composition with more than 200 works for the stage, chamber orchestra, voice as well as for the full orchestra. He's the Founder and Artistic Director of The Intimacy of Creativity by the HKUST and has just recorded with the HKPO the 3 concertos he wrote.
Sheng had an eventful past. During the Cultural Revolution when he was 15, he was sent to Qinghai as a pianist (having been taught by his mother) and percussionist and there stayed 7 years, where he studied and absorbed the folk music of the pastoral races there. He returned to Shanghai in 1978 to study composition in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and moved to City U of NY in America 4 years later to continue his studies in composition with George Perle and Hugo Weisgall, and Carl Schachter and got an MA 2 years later. After that, he continued to study composition with Chou Wen-Chung, Jack Beeson and Mario Davidovsky at Columbia University and earned his DMA in 1993. He also took private conducting lessons from Leonard Bernstein until he died in 1990.
He's a talented student and earned many scholarships and awards. In 1999, he was commissioned by President Clinton to create a new work for visiting Chinese Premiere Zhu Rongji. He wrote Three Songs for Pipa and Cello which were premiered by Wu Man and Yo Yo Ma during the state dinner hosted by the Clintons. He's said to write in a dramatic style on historical themes and his major orchestral works includes H’un: In Memoriam 1966-76 (1988) and Nanking! Nanking!—a Threnody for Pipa and Orchestra (2000), and an opera Madam Mao (2003), inspired by recent Chinese history. H’un , commissioned and premiered in 1988 by the New York Chamber Symphony, is about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a work Kurt Masur and the NY Phil performed in six cities on their 1993 European tour after giving doing so in New York and Washington. It established Sheng’s reputation as a composer. It has since been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic and many other major orchestras around the world.
In 2000, Christoph Eschenbach and the Northern German Radio Symphony commissioned and premiered Nanking! Nanking! in Hamburg and later the Red Silk Dance, a capriccio for piano and orchestra, was commissioned and premiered by the Boston Symphony with soloist Emanuel Ax and conductor Robert Spano. In 2001 Red Silk Dance had its New York premiere by the New York Philharmonic. Sheng also wrote many other important orchestra works including Tibetan Swing (2002), Flute Moon (1999), Spring Dreams (1998), Postcards (1997), and China Dreams (1995).
He also took part in his first Silk Road project in 2000, when he followed the route of Zhang Qian, the first Chinese traveler in 138 BC in northwest China from Changan (now Xian) to Kashgar and collected traditional, folk music and sound samples, later followed up on the Sea Silk Road from Southern China to Vietnam etc. He served as advisor to Yo Yo Ma's own Silk Road project from 1998 to 2003.
In 2003 Carnegie Hall presented a Sheng portrait concert in its “Making Music” series with the principles from the New York Philharmonic and the Shanghai Quartet. In the same week the New York Philharmonic premiered its commissioned work, Song and Dance of Tears—a quadruple concerto for cello, piano, pipa and sheng, featuring soloists Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, Wuman and Wutong, conducted by David Zinman, using some of the materials he collected in his Silk Road Project.
In 2004 Sheng premiered his Phoenix, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony for its centennial celebration tour to Carnegie Hall with soprano Jane Eaglen and Gerard Schwarz conducting. The work was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s poem/prose with the same title and co-commissioned by the Danish National Radio Symphony for Andersen’s bicentennial birthday. The following year Phoenix had its Danish premiere in Copenhagen and the orchestra took it on its Asian tour in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. In 2007 Phoenix was conducted by Charles Dutoit with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Spring. He also helped to compose the opening music for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Sheng’s music has been recorded on Sony Classical, BIS, Delos, Koch International, New World, Telarc and Naxos labels. 2009 saw three new discs of Sheng’s music released, two on Naxos: Red Silk Dance (Sheng as the piano soloist), Phoenix, Tibetan Swing, H’un (second recording), and Spring Dreams, Three Fantasies, Tibetan Dance, and on Telarc Never Far Away, The Nightingale and the Rose, Tibetan Love Song and Swing, Shanghai Overture.Since 1995, Sheng has been teaching composition at the University of Michigan, where he is the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Music.
In 2007, he wrote the Shanghai Overture, the piece we heard. It was commissioned by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Sheng’s alma mater to celebrate its 80th anniversary. It's is a piece of music full of strive, full of the jarring sound of the cymbals and the shrill sound of the Chinese wind instruments like the flute of the traditional Chinese orchestra. He used a huge variety of musical instruments, including the harp yet unlike the works of some of the contemporary Chinese composers, it does have melodic lines, although most unlike traditional Chinese music, it's counterbalanced by the use of some heavy string basses and has some very innovative use of percussions. The music is thus a curious mix of Central and Southern Chinese, Western Chinese and Western music, full of strive and joy. It takes a bit of getting used to and most of my fellow concert buddies didn't like it much. But for me, it's not as bad they would try to convince me that it was. We all need a little time to re-adjust our ears to novel sounds. I remind myself that when Beethoven first premiered his forceful music, he was branded a barbarian.
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