Qigang Chen was studying music as a teenager at the Central Conservatory of Music at the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. He was confined for three years and underwent “ideological re-education”, yet went on learning composition despite social and political anti-cultural pressures. In 1977 the state reopened entry the Conservatory and he studied there for five years with Luo Zhongrong.
In 1983 Chen won a postgraduate contest to travel abroad, and for four years was Messiaen’s only student after the master’s retirement from the Paris Conservatoire. He described how Chen’s compositions “show real inventiveness, very great talent and a total assimiliation of Chinese thinking with European musical concepts.” Chen has received commissions from Radio France, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Stuttgart RSO, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Koussevitzky Foundation. He was composer-in-residence at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg from 2004 to 2006.
In 2008 Chen has worked as Director of Music for the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, to be watched by 100,000 in the stadium with several billion watching wordwide on TV.
August 2008
This biography can be reproduced free of charge in concert programmes with the following credit: Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
