Wang Jianzhong

Wang Jianzhong was born in Shanghai in 1933 to a family from Jiangyin, Jiangsu. He began the piano at ten, entered the Shanghai Conservatory in 1950 to study composition and piano, and joined its staff after graduating in 1958. In the 1970s he was a staff composer of the Central Philharmonic, and in the 1980s he returned to the conservatory, where he became professor, deputy head of the composition department and vice-president. He was known for bringing folk tunes and old instrumental pieces to the piano: his arrangements include Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon and Liuyang River, and in 1973 he wrote A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix and Three Variations on Plum Blossoms. A collection of his piano works was published in 1995. He died in the United States on 11 February 2016.