Performers › Composers
Zhang Xiaohu
Tianjin-born composer, conductor and music educator who finished the symphonic poem Su Wu in 1945 and scored the 1957 national dance drama The Lotus Lantern.
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.
Zhang Xiaohu, whose family came from Wujin in Jiangsu, was born in Tianjin on 25 February 1914. He entered Tsinghua University in 1931 to study civil engineering while learning conducting and composition on the side and leading the university orchestra, and after graduating in 1936 stayed on as a music assistant. From 1937 he taught music in Tianjin and founded orchestras and choirs there, completing the symphonic poem Su Wu in 1945 before returning to Tsinghua in 1946. He went on to teach for many years in the music departments of Beijing Normal University, the Beijing Arts Institute and other schools, leading their composition teaching. In 1957 he wrote the score for The Lotus Lantern, the national dance drama choreographed by Li Zhonglin and Huang Boshou. He also wrote a study of pentatonic modes. He died on 19 February 1997.
Life and times
Dates 1914–1997