Performers › Composers
Qu Wei
Composer from Changzhou, Jiangsu, born Qu Shixiong, who wrote the music for the opera The White-Haired Girl with Ma Ke, Zhang Lu and others.
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 Qu Shixiong
- Roles
- Composers
Qu Wei, born Qu Shixiong in Changzhou, Jiangsu, on 9 May 1917, entered the teacher-training department of the Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai in 1933 and from 1940 taught in the music department of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts. In 1945 he wrote the music for the opera The White-Haired Girl together with Ma Ke, Zhang Lu and others, his first major work. He went to the Soviet Union in 1955 and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1959. He worked as a composer for the Northeast Film Studio, the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. His other works include the piano piece Flower Drum and the music for the dance drama The White-Haired Girl. His wife Ji Ming was also a composer. He died in Changzhou on 20 May 2002.
Life and times
Dates 1917–2002