Xiang Zuhua

Xiang Zuhua was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu, in 1934 into a musical family; his father Xiang Yinshi founded the Wuping music society in 1929. He learned the yangqin and erhu as a child under the Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo master Ren Meichu and Lu Xiutang, and was already performing in Suzhou and Shanghai concerts in the 1940s, paired in reputation with his elder brother Xiang Zuying. In the 1950s he joined the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra and taught yangqin at the Shanghai Conservatory, and from the 1960s he taught at conservatories in Beijing. His yangqin suite Guohun has four movements, Qu Yuan Mourned by the River, Su Wu Tends the Sheep, Wang Zhaojun Goes to the Xiongnu and Lin Chong Flees by Night; other works include Bamboo Grove in Green Waves, and he wrote the textbook Yangqin Performance Technique. In 1991 he was elected vice-president of the International Dulcimer (Yangqin) Association. He died in 2017.