Ye Xiaogang


Ye Xiaogang is one of China's most active and most famous composers of contemporary classical music.

Biography

Ye was born in Shanghai in 1955. He studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing from 1978 to 1983, under the composer Du Mingxin. He then studied at the Eastman School of Music beginning in 1987. His teachers include Alexander Goehr.
He teaches at the Central Conservatory of Music, where he serves as Assistant President and vice dean of the composition department.
His Starry Sky was premiered at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In the summer of 2006, Ye took part in the inaugural "Composer Alive!" transpacific correspondence project with Accessible Contemporary Music in Chicago, Illinois. This project consisted of Ye composing a piece, Datura, and sending its fragments as they were completed to Chicago, electronically. They were subsequently read by ACM's performance ensemble and posted to the Internet for Ye's approval. The project culminated with Ye traveling to the United States for the completed work's premiere performance.

Selected compositions

The Great Wall Symphony consists of nine movements, with vocal parts and traditional Chinese musical instruments and folk tunes are used in it. Ye composed the soundtrack to the documentary The Rise of the Great Powers.