"I have been a fan of Shanghai Spring for more than 60 years since it was founded. This year I will finally perform my entire symphony on this stage. The 62-year musical dream has finally come true!" 78-year-old composer Wu Songjin said on March 15 When I was interviewed by a reporter in Shanghai, I clearly remembered myself as a teenager. When I first heard the name "Shanghai Spring", I felt a huge impulse in my heart.
As one of the major performances in the "Theme Leading" section of the 39th Shanghai Spring International Music Festival, Wu Songjin teamed up with six young composers from Beijing and Shanghai, including Zheng Yang and Xu Ke, to select 24 of his best works, rearrange them and create them. The symphony concert "Chinese Music and Pictures - Orchestral Suite on Praise of Today's Music Theme" will be conducted by the Shanghai Opera House Symphony Orchestra conducted by young conductor Zhang Chengjie on the evening of April 10 at the Jaguar Shanghai Symphony Hall. This is also another appearance of this work on an important domestic cultural platform after it was selected for the "China Symphonic Music Season" in November last year and successfully premiered in the capital with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tan Lihua.
16-year-old boy's "distant musical dream"
In 1959, the violin concerto "Butterfly Lovers" co-written by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang premiered at the Lanxin Theater in the "Shanghai Music and Dance Performance Month", the predecessor of Shanghai Spring. In 1960, Hong Kong Sing Sing Film Enterprises Co., Ltd. shot the movie "The Love of Fishing Lights" and chose to use "Butterfly Lovers" as the background music of the entire film and screened it in mainland China.
Teenage Wu Songjin saw this movie during the summer vacation of 1962. "That year I was in the second year of junior high school in Nanchang No. 1 Middle School. Because I loved music, I was particularly interested in everything related to music. I was deeply impressed by the soundtrack of "Yu Guang Love". I felt like crying, and it also had a hint of Yue Opera. The style of music is particularly nice. Later I asked my music teacher and learned that it was "Butterfly Lovers", composed and performed by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and originated from the Shanghai Spring Music and Dance Festival (the old name of the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival)." So, in Shanghai. The word "spring" has become "a distant musical dream" in the heart of a 16-year-old boy.
"When the 5th Shanghai Spring was held, outstanding actors from the Jiangxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe and the Provincial Farming and Reclamation Art Troupe formed a performance team. I later learned from the newspaper that my favorite Jiangxi famous singers Luo Decheng, Ma Cunlan, Xiao Yumei and others were performing here. Songs such as "Welcome to Jinggang Mountain" and "Jiangxi is a Good Place" were performed on the stage. They were well received by the Shanghai audience. I was very happy and yearned for Shanghai Spring even more."
Not long after the 6th Shanghai Spring ended, The stage art film "Shanghai Spring" produced by Shanghai Tianma Film Studio was released in Nanchang. "I went to the cinema to watch two games in a row. Among them, the large-scale orchestral "Ode to the Red Flag" composed by Lu Qiming left a deep impression on me. The song " Sailing the sea depends on the helmsman", Shanghai Opera "Ludang Fire", Pingtan "Send the God of Plague", "Photograph for the Female Militia", as well as the ballet "White-Haired Girl" created and performed by Shanghai Dance School, and the children's song performance "Little Li" composed by Wang Ling "Multi-branched Fruit" and so on are all particularly unforgettable for me."
Wu Songjin, who has been studying composition in his spare time, wrote the widely circulated children's song "Planting Pumpkins in the Jinggang Mountains" in the early 1970s. After resuming the college entrance examination in 1977 , was admitted to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, which he longed for, and began to study composition formally. His childhood idols He Zhanhao and Chen Gang both stayed at the school as professors. "I also met Zhu Jian'er, Lu Qiming and other admired composer masters, and received their face-to-face guidance." He said that what he did not expect was that at the end of 1981 he would also have the opportunity to indirectly participate in Shanghai Spring.
"In order to participate in the 10th Shanghai Spring, several singers from the Shanghai Radio and Television Art Troupe commissioned me to write songs. In the 1982 Shanghai Spring Music and Dance Festival, I composed "Spring is Always in Our Campus" Works such as "The Farmer Climbs to the Sky" and "The Beauty of Flowers in the Heart" were sung by the group's singers Zhou Fenglan, Fang Shizhen, Jin Xiaoqiang, and Zhang Zhengyi respectively. My songs finally appeared on the stage of Shanghai Spring!"
works in the industry 50 years of never forgetting the original intention of creation
In the early 1990s, pop music in mainland China began to develop rapidly.Wu Songjin, who went south to Guangzhou to join the Chinese record company Guangzhou Company, single-handedly brought out more than ten pop singers with different styles, including Yang Yuying, Chen Sisi, Zhou Liang, Huang Weilin (Macau), Xiao Zeng, Ren Miaoyin, etc., and wrote "Chashan Love Song" and " The wind is full of love, the water is smiling", "Don't guess what a girl is thinking", "My Lover Goes to the South", "Green Flowers in the Army" and other popular songs that are sung across the country. While Wu Songjin is flourishing in the pop music world, he still yearns for the Shanghai Spring. “I have always insisted on coming to this platform to observe and learn. For example, in 1991, the composer I admired, Zhu Jian’er, released the Fourth Symphony and the Fifth Symphony. Symphony" two new orchestral works, I really benefited a lot from listening to them."
Wu Songjin, who regards Shanghai Spring as "a grand gathering of the national music industry", also continues to try to create "non-pop music" here. "At a banquet, I met Zhang Ye, a young singer from Beijing. We met very happily, talked about singing and works together, and we hit it off very well. She was temporarily emerging in the music world and needed new songs, and I needed excellent singers to release them. A new record. The two parties hit it off immediately and agreed to cooperate." A year later, Wu Songjin customized 8 ancient beauty vocal suites for Zhang Ye, including "Zhaojun Goes Out of the Wall", "Drunk Concubine", "Diao Chan Worships the Moon" and "Xishi Shasha", which were recorded in China The record company released the album "Thousands of Beauties - Zhang Ye's Solo Album". Subsequently, Zhang gradually grew into a well-known singer.
Wu Songjin has been practicing for 50 years and has composed more than 5,000 vocal and instrumental works. Many of his works have a strong Chinese style. "During my study and creation process, my idol composers have given me great inspiration. I have a rich range of works, but I have never forgotten my original intention, which is to insist on using Chinese elements familiar to us people and strive to Appreciating both the refined and the popular."
In recent years, Wu Songjin has shifted his focus to the field of pure music and composed "Chinese Music and Painting", an original large-scale symphony composed of 24 orchestral pieces. This spring, 62 years after the philharmonic boy planted the seeds of his dream of "Shanghai Spring", the nearly eighty-year-old finally officially appeared on this big stage with the "Chinese Music and Pictures" symphony concert.
"Newcomers" in Shanghai Spring praise the beauty of the mountains and rivers of the motherland.
The symphonic suite "Chinese Music and Painting" was composed by Wu Songjin, breaking through the constraints of the music circle, and co-created by young composers such as Zheng Yang, Xu Ke, Sun Xiaosong, Wang Haoyu, Zhang Shuhao, and Li Ziao. Become. After the work was born in 2023, it became an original new symphony work recommended by the China Symphony Review and the Eighth China Symphony Music Season. It premiered in Beijing on November 19 of that year with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tan Lihua. The
suite selects the melodies of original songs that are familiar to Chinese audiences. It uses symphonic thinking and instrumental language to tell the story of China in today's era, depicting the Han, Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian, Hui, Mosuo and other Chinese people. The ethnic customs show the distinctive humanistic characteristics of the Northwest, Jiangnan, Frontier, Ganpo, and Greater Bay Area regions in China, and use musical notes to weave colorful musical pictures.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of New China and the 65th anniversary of the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival. With the theme of "Praise for the New Era", this music festival uses major themes as a guide to guide and support theme creation. Through music and dance works with distinctive themes and unique characteristics, it plays the strong voice of the era of national rejuvenation and cultural confidence. Lu Qiming's classic work "Ode to the Red Flag", which Wu Songjin regards as his idol, will be performed in piano and orchestra versions at the opening concert. As a performance in the "Theme Leading" section, "Chinese Music and Painting" will show the beauty of mountains, rivers and culture in the form of art, and express the ambition of struggle and the fruits of development. "This is an honorable moment in my musical life, and it is also my artistic mission as a composer." Wu Songjin said.
Author: Jiang Fang
Text: Jiang Fang Picture: Photo provided by interviewee Editor: Wang Yan Editor: Xing Xiaofang
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