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Lu Chunling

Shanghai dizi virtuoso and composer of the southern school, rooted in Jiangnan sizhu; composer of Then and Now and Good News, whose Partridges in Flight won a Golden Disc award.

Also known as Called the Flute King

Lu Chunling was born in Shanghai in 1921. He learned the flute at seven from an old leather worker and was playing on Shanghai radio by thirteen. He worked at the Jiangnan Shipyard and as a taxi driver while studying Jiangnan sizhu in his spare time, helped found a Chinese music ensemble in 1940, and later helped set up the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. From 1954 he taught part-time at the Shanghai Conservatory, becoming a professor in 1976. His compositions include Then and Now, Good News and Spring in Jiangnan, and his arrangement of Partridges in Flight won the first China Golden Disc award in 1989. He headed the Shanghai Jiangnan Sizhu Society and died in Shanghai in May 2018.

Life and times

  1. 1921 CEBornRepublican EraModern Era
  2. 2018 CEDied

Works

  1. Stage · Pieces4
    1. Three Variations on the Plum Blossom1425, in the Shenqi MipuIts harmonic theme is played three times, in the upper, middle and lower registers, hence the name
    2. Partridges Flying1926 CE (earliest printed score)A Hunan folk tune whose earliest printed score appeared in a 1926 anthology
    3. Song of JoyTraditional; date unknownOne of the Eight Great Pieces of Jiangnan sizhu, moving from a slow opening to a lively close
    4. Slow Six BeatsTraditional; date unknownOne of the Eight Great Pieces of Jiangnan sizhu, grown from Lao Liu Ban by slowing and ornamenting