Bright Sheng Bright Sheng

Bright Sheng (Chinese: 盛宗亮; pinyin: Shèng Zōngliàng; born December 6, 1955 in Shanghai, China) is a Chinese-American composer, conductor, and pianist. He has lived in the United States since 1982 and is on faculty at the University of Michigan. In 1999, the White House commissioned Sheng to compose a piece to honor the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji at a state dinner hosted by President Bill Clinton. In November 2001, Sheng received a MacArthur Fellowship. Sheng is the New York City Ballet's first composer-in-residence.

Sheng's compositions have been performed by most major American orchestras, as well as many European and Asian orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the China National Symphony. Some of the most notable performers of Sheng's music have included Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Kurt Masur, Emanuel Ax, Leonard Slatkin, Robert Spano, David Zinman, and Neeme Järvi. Sheng's most notable teachers include Leonard Bernstein and Chou Wen-Chung.

Notable compositions

• Never Far Away, a harp concerto, world premiere (2008) by Yolanda Kondonassis and the San Diego Symphony
• Nanking! Nanking!, a threnody about the Nanking massacre
• Red Silk Dance
• Madame Mao, commissioned by and given its world premiere by the Santa Fe Opera in 2003
• China Dreams
• The Silver River (1997), an opera premiered in Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Four Movements for Piano Trio
• The Song of Majnun
• Seven Tunes Heard in China, for Solo Cello
• The Nightingale and the Rose

Trivia

• The second syllable of Sheng's given name, Liang, loosely translates as "bright lights," which is why he took "Bright" as his English first name.