Yin Zizhong (; 1909 – May 10, 1985), also

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

as Che Chung Wan, Wan-Chi Chung, Zheng Zhisheng, was a popular Chinese musician during the

New Culture Movement The New Culture Movement () was a movement in China in the 1910s and 1920s that criticized classical Chinese ideas and promoted a new Chinese culture based upon progressive, modern and western ideals like democracy and science. Arising out of ...

of the 1910s and 1920s in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

Career

He was raised in China's

Guangdong province Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

and was affected by Western Church Music from an early age – Yin began performing at age 11, and went abroad to study in Lyons and Paris. At age 20, he was invited to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

to play; he also played in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. He returned to China in the 1930s and introduced Western Music to China as the first Chinese conductor of a Chinese orchestra, when he became employed by Chongqing Symphonic Orchestra. At this Orchestra; where previously performances were given of Beethoven and Mozart, attendance, organization and management was exclusive to and solely performed by the expatriate community in China, since as far back as the 1850s. A Russian orchestra was in operation in nearby Harbin from the early 20th century. During his employment as a conductor at the Chongqing Symphonic Orchestra, Yin has been credited as a major contributor to the creation of a "Guangdong" style of playing the violin in

Chinese opera Traditional Chinese opera (), or ''Xiqu'', is a form of musical theatre in China with roots going back to the early periods in China. It is an amalgamation of various art forms that existed in ancient China, and evolved gradually over more tha ...

, a method still used today. Some of the works he is known for are "Magnolia Pearl", "Huazhou Hero", and "Overturned the Child". From the 1930s to 1960s, he was a composer for

Hong Kong cinema The cinema of Hong Kong ( zh, t=香港電影) is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of pol ...

. He was also an actor for the films "Wealth Is Like a Dream "(1948), "Bitter Sweet" (1936), and "A Blooming Rose" (1935). The revolutionary spirit of Yin's style has been continued by the first generation of composers immediately following the accession of the Chinese Communist Party to power, namely Li Delun and Cao Peng. During this time he was regarded as one of the most popular performers of this age. In 1952, he stopped working in cinema in Hong Kong, and in 1957 he emigrated to San Francisco and taught music there for eight years. Later, he was invited to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

to teach in the Chinese Music Society. When he arrived in San Francisco in 1963, he received the key to San Francisco from the mayor at the time (

George Christopher George Christopher (born George Christopheles; December 8, 1907 – September 14, 2000) was a Greek-American politician who served as the 34th mayor of San Francisco from 1956 to 1964. He is the most recent Republican to be elected mayor of San ...

). He died on May 10, 1985 in Boston and is currently buried in Forest Hills Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yin, Zizhong 1909 births 1985 deaths Place of birth missing Republic of China musicians People from Foshan Musicians from Guangdong 20th-century Chinese musicians