Bright Sheng (Chinese: 盛宗亮; pinyin: Shèng Zōngliàng; born December 6, 1955) is a Chinese-born American composer, pianist and conductor.
His music has been performed by such musicians as the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, Gerard Schwarz, David Robertson, David Zinman, Neeme Järvi, Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff; the cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Alisa Weilerstein; the pianists Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and Peter Serkin; the violinists Gil Shaham and Cho-Liang Lin; and the percussionist Evelyn Glennie.
Shortly thereafter, he decided to play piano for the rest of his life, although he didn't believe that he could become a musician since his family had no history of music.
[1] Some of his teachers included George Perle and Hugo Weisgall at Queens College and Chou Wen-chung, Jack Beeson, and Mario Davidovsky at Columbia University,[4] as well as Leonard Bernstein.
[5] To prepare, he went on a field research trip along the Silk Road regions in China, tracing their musical culture to collect folk songs and historical materials.
Sheng had also wanted to write a research article to document the composition, gain the help from a graduate student, as well as lecturing on American music.
[5] In October 2021, Sheng stepped down from teaching an undergraduate class, where he says he had intended to show how Giuseppe Verdi adapted William Shakespeare's play Othello into his opera Otello.
[6][8] Evan Chambers, a fellow professor of composition, said "To show the film now, especially without substantial framing, content advisory and a focus on its inherent racism is in itself a racist act, regardless of the professor's intentions",[6] and David Gier, dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, said that Sheng's actions "do not align with our School's commitment to anti-racist action, diversity, equity and inclusion".
[8] But according to Robert Soave of Reason, the university had violated the principle of academic freedom and showing the movie was neither a racist act nor approval of racism.
[4] While still young in China, Sheng studied the history that made up Chinese music in three forms: classical, folk, and theatrical.
[5] In 1996, Sheng traveled back to his home country of China after fourteen years to compose Spring Dreams, commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma.
[1] His orchestral composition H’un (‘Lacerations’), which premiered with the New York Chamber Symphony in 1988 and was a memorial to the Cultural Revolution in China, was awarded the first runner-up for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize.