Peng Xiuwen (; 7 February 1931 – 28 December 1996) was a noted Chinese conductor and composer. He was a native of

Wuhan Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

province, in central China. Peng learned to play the ''

erhu The (; ) is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, that is sometimes known in the Western world as the ''Chinese violin'' or a ''Chinese two-stringed fiddle''. It is used as a solo instrument as ...

'' beginning at age seven. In 1956, he became the conductor and director of China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra, an orchestra of Chinese traditional (and modernized traditional) instruments, based in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. Peng Xiuwen arranged numerous traditional music pieces for the Chinese orchestra. Among these is a piece of orchestral music inspired by

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

poet Zhang Ruoxu's famous poem "Spring River in the Flower Moon Night" (''Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye'', 春江花月夜) first written by Liu Raozhang (柳堯章) in 1925 based on an older tune for

pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rangi ...

. It has since entered the classical repertoire for the traditional Chinese instrument

guzheng The zheng (), or guzheng (), is a Chinese List of Chinese musical instruments#Plucked, plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25, or 26 strings, is long, and is tuned in a Major scale, major pentatonic scale. It has a large, reson ...

. He also adapted music pieces originally written for a Western orchestra to be played in a Chinese orchestra, such as '' Dance of the Yao People'', as well as Bizet's '' Carmen suite''.

References

External links

Peng Xiuwen interview
(in Chinese) 1931 births 1996 deaths Chinese male composers Chinese conductors (music) Musicians from Wuhan 20th-century Chinese composers Chinese composers 20th-century Chinese musicians 20th-century conductors (music) 20th-century Chinese male musicians {{conductor-stub