Peng Xiuwen

Peng Xiuwen was born in Hankou, Wuhan, Hubei, in 1931. He joined the Chongqing People's Broadcasting Station in 1950, and from 1953 was conductor and composer of the Central Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra. At the sixth World Festival of Youth in Moscow in 1957 he led the orchestra in his own arrangements, including Golden Snake Dance and Moon over the Mountain Pass, and won a gold medal; he later became the orchestra's artistic director and a guest conductor of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Over four decades he composed or arranged more than 400 works for Chinese orchestra: original pieces such as Harvest Gongs and Drums (with Cai Huiquan), the symphonic poem Flowing Water and the fantasia Qin Terracotta Warriors, and arrangements such as Spring River Flower Moon Night and Dance of the Yao People. He is counted among the founders of the modern Chinese orchestra. He died in Beijing in December 1996.