Peng Xiuwen (Chinese: 彭修文; pinyin: Péng Xiūwén; 7 February 1931 – 28 December 1996) was a noted Chinese conductor and composer. He was a native of Wuhan, Hubei province, in central China.
Peng learned to play the erhu beginning at age seven. In 1956, he became the conductor and director of China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra, an orchestra of Chinese traditional (and modernized traditional) instruments, based in Beijing.
Peng Xiuwen arranged numerous traditional music pieces for the Chinese orchestra. Among these is a piece of orchestral music inspired by Tang dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxu's famous poem "Spring River in the Flower Moon Night" (Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye, 春江花月夜) first written by Liu Raozhang (柳堯章) in 1925 based on an older tune for pipa. It has since entered the classical repertoire for the traditional Chinese instrument guzheng. He also adapted music pieces originally written for a Western orchestra to be played in a Chinese orchestra, such as Dance of the Yao People, as well as Bizet's Carmen suite.
References
- Tsao Penyeh; Penyeh Tsao (16 September 1998). Tradition and Change in the Performance of Chinese Music, Part 2. Routledge. p. 26. ISBN 978-90-5755-041-6.
- Hoi Yan Cheung (2011). Chinese Music and Translated Modernity in Shanghai, 1918--1937. p. 224. ISBN 978-1-243-52601-4.
- "Music". Hunan Provincial Museum. Archived from the original on 6 February 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
- Kelly Kar Yue Chan; Chi Sum Garfield Lau, eds. (11 May 2020). Chinese Culture in the 21st Century and its Global Dimensions: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Springer. p. 115. ISBN 978-981-15-2743-2.
External links
- Peng Xiuwen interview (in Chinese)
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