Bright Sheng

Based on a well-known Chinese folk song, a common influence in Sheng's works. In this setting, the viola should evoke the timbre, and tone quality of a female folk singer.

Inspired by Concertino for Clarinet and String Quartet, which draws on fragments of folk tunes from northwestern China. This edition presented for solo clarinet (B flat or A).

M'ai Sang (My Song) can be translated into Pulsating Voices. A 10-minute piece in 3 movements that interprets Chinese folk-music and dance into a Western mold. Written for and recorded by Peter Serkin...

This joyful suite of pieces for solo cello, based on folk melodies from various regions of the composer's native China, was written for and premiered by Yo-Yo Ma, who has also recorded it for Sony Cla...

Four Movements For Piano Trio' is based on musical materials from 'My Song', a work by Sheng for solo Piano, composed in 1988 which attempted to combine his background in Oriental classical and folk m...

Commissioned by the Taksscs Quartet, Great Performers of Lincoln Center, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Colorado and the Ensemble Music Society of Indianapolis. Duration c...

This piece was jointly commissioned by the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Richmond, Virginia. It is dedicated to the Shanghai Quartet, who debuted it...

Three songs for violoncello and pipa (a Chinese lute) based on popular folk tunes the composer heard while growing up in China. 8 minutes.

Based on the instrumental interlude of the well-known Peking Opera, Farewell My Concubine. 10 minutes.

Three fantasy movements which draw on uniquely different inspirations. 15 minutes.

A haunting unaccompanied violin work based on folk music of the composer's native China.

An early Sheng work based on ci love poetry from the eastern Chinese city of Hang Zhou. Ci poetry was written with music in mind and intended to be sung.

China Dreams is a four-movement work written in 1995 for the Seattle Symphony. The work reflects Sheng's nostalgia for his homeland, expressed through use of Chinese folk melodies from different provi...

A new Voice/Piano arrangement of this wonderful opera, a tragic love story based on a famous Islamic legend. First performed in 1992 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

This work is scored for a professional children's choir, or a women's chorus, guiro (s) and harp and is based on a folk song from northern Shaanxi Province in China. The music is a simple rhythmic tow...

Flute Moon, premiered by the Houston Symphony Orchestra in 1999, is for solo flute/piccolo with a chamber orchestra comprised of harp, piano, percussion and strings. The music is based on Chinese myth...

For Clarinet and String Quartet. Written in 1994, the premiere performance was given by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, New York City, David Shifrin clarinet.

Commissioned by the Verdehr Trio, Tibetan Dance had its first performance on March 7, 2001. The three-movement work is based on the rhythm and melodic motive of a Tibetan folk dance from Qinghai, a Ch...

Dance Capriccio is inspired by the dance folk music of the Sherpa people, a small ethnic group (population ca. 150, 000) mostly living in western Nepal, in the high mountains of the Himalayas.

Three wonderful compositions, by the talented and innovative Chinese composer Bright Sheng. Requested by Seiji Ozawa for Leonard Bernstein's 70th Birthday celebration, these Three Chinese Love Songs a...

Composer Note: In 1990, after eight years in the United States, I wrote my first work for solo piano, titled My Song, commissioned for Peter Serkin. At the time, my primary compositional concentration...