Zhang Xiaoxuan

Zhang Xiaoxuan, also written with a simpler middle character, was a native of Beijing, or by another account of Hangzhou. Once a copyist in the Qing Board of Revenue and an amateur drum-song singer, he turned professional in 1909. He sang in the early open-throated manner, powerful and resonant with few ornaments, and moved so boldly on stage that he was nicknamed the painted-face drum singer. Rising at the same time as Liu Baoquan and Bai Yunpeng, he gave Jingyun dagu one of its three early schools. His repertoire included Changban Slope, Battle of Changsha, The Single-Sword Meeting and Meeting at Blue Bridge, and he wrote The Tianjin Flood. Long based in Tianjin, he toured the Northeast and Shandong in the 1930s and died of illness in Shenyang in 1945.