Liu Guanle

Also known as Also known as Liu Haishui

Liu Guanle, also known as Haishui, was born in 1918 in Nanzhang village, Anguo, Hebei. He took up the flute as a youth and became a well-known folk musician around Anguo, playing for weddings and funerals. In 1949 he went to study music at the Hebei Art School and then joined the Tianjin Music Work Troupe, later the Tianjin Song and Dance Theatre, as its flautist; in 1951 he played at the first Prague Spring festival and later toured the Soviet Union, Egypt and other countries. His Flute Solo Collection of 1956 included Birds in the Shade and Selling Vegetables, long required repertoire in conservatories. He developed a nine-hole flute and a flute with a tuning joint, and died of illness in Tianjin in May 1990.