Performers › Composers
Mao Yuan
Tsinghua-trained engineer turned composer at the Central Opera House, co-author with Liu Tieshan of the orchestral Dance of the Yao People and composer of the violin piece New Spring.
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.
- Roles
- Composers
Mao Yuan was born in Beijing in 1926; one source gives his family home as Jinan, Shandong. He studied civil engineering at Tsinghua University from 1946, taking an active part in its music room, and graduated in 1950. From 1951 he worked as a professional musician at the Central Opera House, long serving as one of its composers, and later taught at the Central Conservatory and elsewhere. In 1952 he and Liu Tieshan created Dance of the Yao People: Liu wrote the melody from Yao long-drum dance tunes and Mao developed and orchestrated it. His violin piece New Spring is standard conservatory repertoire, and in 1982 he wrote the ballet score The Bamboo Painter, Zheng Banqiao, for Houston Ballet. He died of illness on 10 October 2022, aged 96.
Life and times
Dates 1926–2022