Leading International Composers: Zhou Long, China
with Music From China
Leading International Composer, Zhou Long, from China, will be joined by the ensemble Music From China in a performance in partnership with the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
Program
In partnership with the Cultural Office of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
PROGRAM:
绿（笛子与琵琶）
Green (1984)
dizi (bamboo flute) and pipa
中国民歌三首（笛子，二胡，琵琶，筝与打击乐）
Chinese Folk Songs
dizi, erhu, pipa, zheng, percussion
梅花三弄（箫，筝与打击乐）
Impression of Wintersweet (2000)
xiao, pipa, percussion
空谷流水（笛子，二胡，筝与打击乐）
Valley Stream (1983)
dizi, erhu, zheng, percussion
恒（箫，二胡，琵琶，筝与打击乐）
HENG (Eternity) (1987)
xiao, erhu, pipa, zheng, percussion
太平鼓（二胡与琵琶）
Taiping Drum (1983)
erhu and pipa
长风破浪（笛子，二胡，琵琶，筝与打击乐）
Mount a Long Wind (2004)
dizi, erhu, pipa, zheng, percussion
About the Composer
Zhou Long is internationally recognized for creating a unique body of music that brings together the aesthetic concepts and musical elements of East and West. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his first opera, Madame White Snake, Dr. Zhou also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the 2012-2013 Elise Stoeger Prize from Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. He has been two-time recipient of commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm Music Foundations, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, and the New York State Council on the Arts. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2015, Zhou Long and Chen Yi both nominated the 58th Grammy Award.
Born on July 8, 1953 in Beijing. Zhou Long enrolled in the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1977. Following graduation in 1983, he was appointed composer-in-residence with the China Broadcasting Symphony. He travelled to the United States in 1985 under a fellowship to attend Columbia University, where he studied with Chou Wen-Chung, Davidovsky and Edwards, receiving a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1993. Dr. Zhou is currently Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance and Visiting Professor at Tianjin Conservatory of Music.
Recently, he has completed Tsingtao Overture, which awarded China National Arts Fund; Beijing Rhyme - A Symphonic Suite, commissioned by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, a quartet co-commissioned by the Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center, and his first piano concerto Postures co-commissioned by the BBC Proms and Singapore Symphony. In 2013, Zhou Long has composed a whole evening symphonic epic ‘Nine Odes’ on poems by Qu Yaun for four solo vocalists and orchestra, commissioned by the Beijing Music Festival. Zhou’s music of all genres has been widely performed and recorded, and published by the Oxford University Press and the Shanghai Music Publishing House.
About the Artists
For three decades, Music From China has been on the crossroads of East and West, the traditional and contemporary. In this age of instant new media and globalization, they see their mission as more important than ever. Since 1984, Music From China has brought the best of Chinese music – traditional and contemporary – to audiences in the New York area and beyond. Critics have praised them as “musicians of extraordinary accomplishment and sensitivity performing sophisticated, involving music” (Kansas City Star) and have singled them out for being “accustomed to shattering listeners’ expectations” (High Fidelity).
From the start, Music From China carved a unique place for themselves in the music world by playing not only the traditional repertoire, but the latest of contemporary work as well. For more than two decades, their annual Premiere Works concert series has been one of the world’s primary venues for new works written for Chinese instruments – by both emerging and established composers. The International Composition Competition draws submissions from around the world for their prestigious Music From China Prize.
As collaborators, Music From China regularly works with other ensembles, notably the new-music pioneers PRISM Quartet and the early-music Four Nations Ensemble. In 2001, they joined Yo-Yo Ma in a unique event that included the playing of 3,000-year old Chinese bronze bells at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art in Washington, D.C. For creative programs that combine the music of East and West, Music From China was awarded an Adventurous Programming commendation from Chamber Music America and ASCAP.
Their educational programs have taken us to almost 200 schools, giving students in elementary through high school grades hands-on experience with Chinese instruments and a musical window into Chinese culture. Artist-in-residence programs have taken them to campuses from Bard College and Texas A&M to Princeton University and beyond.
Their 30-member Music From China Youth Orchestra offers youngsters aged 8 to 18 the fun, friendships and discipline of regular rehearsals and concerts along with a chance to connect with Chinese culture in an unforgettable way.