Performers › Composers
Li Huanzhi
Hong Kong-born composer and conductor of Jinjiang, Fujian descent, whose Spring Festival Suite opens with the ubiquitous Spring Festival Overture.
In a palace music hall, a frame of tiered bronze chime bells hangs from dragon-carved beams, with one person standing with their back turned holding two mallets before it; a large red drum and a rack of red knotted cords stand to the left and a stone chime to the right, in evening light.
Also known as Born Li Zhaocai
Li Huanzhi, born Li Zhaocai in Hong Kong in 1919 to a family from Jinjiang, Fujian, entered the Shanghai music conservatory in 1936 under Xiao Youmei and others, and in 1938 studied composition and conducting with Xian Xinghai at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts, where he later taught. In 1955–56 he wrote the orchestral Spring Festival Suite; its first movement, the Spring Festival Overture, built on northern Shaanxi yangge tunes, is often played on its own and has become the most familiar music of the Lunar New Year. From 1960 he was the first director and chief conductor of the Central Chinese Orchestra, and he also wrote the zheng concerto Miluo River Fantasia and Konghou Yin. He died in Beijing in March 2000.
Life and times
Dates 1919–2000