“Meticulous execution with a charming stage presence”
The Straits Times, Singapore

“Mr Yan Huichang is a most charismatic conductor.”
Christopher Fox
Chairman, ISCM 2002 British Section

“The group’s charismatic conductor, Yan Huichang, directed the afternoon with sophisticated elan.”
Bruce Hodges, MusicWeb International

The famous dizi recitalist Tang Junqiao is currently Associate Professor of the dizi at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She is also a member of the Chinese Musicians' Association, Director of the Dizi Society of the China National Orchestra Society, Artistic Consultant and Music Adviser to the Macao Youth Chinese Orchestra, and formerly a Dizi Principal of the Shanghai National Music Orchestra.

With her strong groundwork training, virtuosic skills and in particular, her excellent breathing control, Tang impresses her audience with rich, round tones and highly sensitive interpretations. She has appeared in many concerts and music festivals in China and overseas as soloist, and has given world tours with Tan Dun and Yo Yo Ma, performing the theme from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Concerto.

“Unparalleled music talent, she can create any perfection with her flute.” - Washington Post, USA

Guo Yazhi is currently a Suona Principal with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and an instructor in suona at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

His invention of a removable reed for the suona won for him a Class Two Award for Technological Advancement by the Ministry of Culture in China in 1993. In 1998, he went to New York to participate in the International Pro Musicis Awards, and walked away with the only major prize at the finals by playing six Chinese woodwind instruments: the suona, guanzi, dizi etc.. As reported by the Overseas Chinese Daily, USA, “he has taken an important first step in opening the door to the world for Chinese folk music.” In the same year, he was selected by the Ministry of Culture as one of China’s most outstanding musicians, and was invited to give solo performances for the heads of state.

Guo has given performing tours in many parts of Europe and Asia. Since 1991, he has performed in international music festivals in Germany, Holland, Denmark, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao and China.

Han Lankui is currently Head of Composition, professor and Assistant to the Director of Xi’an Conservatory of Music, and an honoured recipient of the Special Allowance presented by the State Council. After graduating from the Xian Conservatory reading Composition, he furthered his studies at the Musikhochschule Lubeck (Lubeck Conservatory of Music) in Germany. His works include A Symphony with Two Movements, Symphony No. 3, the pipa concerto Qilian Capriccio, the symphonic poem Facets of the Silk Road, the dance drama All Red the River, the dance poem The Charm of Chang’an, the full-length music-and-dance performance Melodies of Dunhuang and music scores for films and television. His works have won for him many awards in national competitions.

Cheng Dazhao is a director of the Chinese Musicians’ Association, Vice Chairman of the Guangdong Musicians’ Association, a National Class One Composer of Zhujiang Film Studio, Visiting Professor of the Shanxi Drama Vocational Training School and a recipient of the honoured Special Allowance from the State Council of China. He was named ‘an Outstanding Literary Figure of Guangdong (Young to Middle-aged Category)’ in 1996.

A prolific composer, he has a wide-ranging repertoire that includes Symphony I, II and III for orchestra, more than 30 works for Chinese orchestra including A Mice’s Wedding, the dance drama Adelaias, and the opera Reed Catkins White and Kapok Red. He has scored for more than 30 film, including Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, and more than 40 television drama series including Love and the Pearl River and To Be Heroes. Many of his works have won awards in national compositions.

Marcel Wengler studied at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels and was assistant for many years to Hans Werner Henze in the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He studied conducting under several persons, including Igor Markevitch and Sergiu Celibidache, the latter having had a great influence on him. In 1978, Marcel Wengler won the first prize in the International Conductors’ Competition in Rio de Janeiro.

As a composer, Wengler has so far written around eighty works of the most varied types, including symphonies and concertos as well as a stage, chamber and ballet music. His compositions, which are published in New York, London and in Germany, are performed the world over.

Wengler is the President of the Luxembourg Society for Contemporary Music and was the artistic director of the World Music Days 2000 in Luxembourg.

Was born in Tianjin in 1922 and grew up in Shanghai. In 1955 Zhu Jian’er went to the Soviet Union for further studies at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. Since 1975 he has been a permanent Composer with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and concurrently teaching Composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music since 1980.

Zhu's oeuvre includes 10 symphonies, 17 overtures, symphonic poems and concertos; the Symphonic Cantata Heroic Poems, etc.. His Symphony No. 4 took Grand Prize at the International Music Composition Prize ‘Queen Marie Jose’ of Switzerland. Zhu was presented the ‘Outstanding Contribution Award’ at the First Shanghai Literature and the Arts Award in 1991. He is listed in the Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians since 2001.

Dr.Tang Jianping is currently a professor and Head of the Department of Composition of Central Conservatory of Music, and supervisor of candidates for doctoral degrees. He was also the first composer to be awarded a Ph.D. in China.

As one of the most representative composers from China today, Tang has an impressive oeuvre that is performed in many places of the world, including on five occasions at the Goldener Saal of Musikverein in Vienna. It includes the pipa concerto, Down the Ages, the percussion concertos Cang Cai and The Torch, the dizi concerto The Song of Flight, the percussion concerto, the Chinese wind music The God of the Earth and Heavn and Man, the concerto fro three pipas Collective Tunes, the symphonic overture Jing Yun, etc.. He has also scored for many theatre productions and is often commissioned to write the music for protocol occasions of the State.

Teaching aside, Dr. Tang also has a heavy schedule that includes presenting academic papers, attending international symposia in Hong Kong, Taiwan etc., and adjudicating for music competitions.

Wen Deqing was born in 1958, in a remote mountainous area in Fujian. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Columbia University in New York.

His music has been performed around the world. He has been honoured with concerts dedicated to his compositions in China, France, Denmark, Switzerland and the United States. His oeuvre comprises six pieces for string quartet, a violin concerto Snow in Summer, and five works in the Traces series. Wen is holder of the Prix Cultura 1999 of the Foundation Kiwanis, the 2001 Composer Prize of the Foundation Leenaards of Switzerland and an award from the Government of Geneva.

Wen’s music is a ‘mixture of the complex and the straightforward, the metaphysical and the rational, the sensational and the intricate, the carefree and the rigorous, the explicit and the poignant’. It is technically virtuosic, yet imbued with emotional nuances. The exquisite details are balanced by tensions, making his innovative approach easily acceptable. He attempts to explore the different ways to write his music, with traditional Chinese arts and Chinese philosophy proving to be a never-failing source of inspiration.