Qigang Chen signs with Boosey & Hawkes
(June 2008)
Boosey & Hawkes is pleased to announce a publishing contract with Chinese composer Qigang Chen, who this year directs the music at the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The new agreement covers Chen’s future compositions, while his earlier works remain published by Billaudot and Durand.Qigang Chen was studying music as a teenager at the Central Conservatory of Music at the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. He was confined for three years and underwent “ideological re-education”, yet went on learning composition despite social and political anti-cultural pressures. In 1977 the state reopened entry the Conservatory and he studied there for five years with Luo Zhongrong.
In 1983 Chen won a postgraduate contest to travel abroad, and for four years was Messiaen’s only student after the master’s retirement from the Paris Conservatoire. He described how Chen’s compositions “show real inventiveness, very great talent and a total assimiliation of Chinese thinking with European musical concepts.” Chen has received commissions from Radio France, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Stuttgart RSO, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Koussevitzky Foundation. He was composer-in-residence at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg from 2004 to 2006.
Works that have travelled internationally include Iris devoilée (2001) for orchestra, female voices and Chinese instruments, available on a highly successful Virgin Classics disc (7243 5 45549 2 6), and Raise the Red Lantern (2002), a full-evening ballet for National Ballet of China directed by Zhang Yimou. Future projects include an orchestral work for the Hong Kong Philharmonic and a second ballet.
For full information visit the Qigang Chen website
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