Composer Ye Xiaogang is an avid reader and writer; he reads for two hours each day, buying books wherever he tours, and is currently writing an autobiographical novel.

All this creative activity helps to shape his musical masterpieces perhaps as much, or even more than, his rich but at times decidedly unpleasant life. As a boy he went through the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), cut off from his music, and his father tried to kill himself. After he returned to China with a composition degree and various awards, his ex-wife asked for a divorce. He is at the peak of his career, but, had a daughter with Down's syndrome last year.

To find out more about what makes him tick, I went to meet him, in a small bookstore near the Central Conservatory of Music where he is a professor of composition.

The bookstore assistant said the tall and elegant Ye is a regular customer, usually coming armed with a long list of books. The day I met him, he produced a list of 26 titles, including novels, book reviews, academic works and essay collections.

Of those, Touring Paris with One Book, by Lin Da tells readers about French history, art, culture, society and revolution through sightseeing, while Symphonies of Life and Death explores Mahler's life, compositions and the social and musical background of the great composer's life.

Also on the list was American naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra, and Century Introspection: Problems of San Nong, which looks at the problems facing the agriculture economy and difficulties in Chinese villages.

"Reading is an important source of my creativity," says Ye. "I hope my music touches people with emotion and artistry rather than shows off great composing techniques.

Ye also likes to write. He is writing an autobiography called "Boundless Sea of the Bitterness," and has finished the first part which tells his family history, especially stories about his composer father Ye Chunzhi who died in 1997.

The second part will tell how the younger Ye suffered during the "cultural revolution" but managed to live thanks to music. The last part will focus on his studies at the China Central Conservatory of Music between 1978 and 1982.
 
Behind the scenes

Scratch beneath the surface and it is easy to find that Ye's life has not been as beautiful as his music. The composer has suffered countless frustrations in his 50 years.

The setbacks started when he was a boy. Ye learned to play the piano at the age of 4 with his composer father, who wrote many musical scores for films. But the "cultural revolution" began soon after. His father was persecuted and tried to commit suicide when Ye was only 11. In those days, suicide was considered a betrayal.

"I witnessed my father being carried away from our house. The 200-metre-long lane was crowded with people gloating. It was a scorching summer afternoon in Shanghai, but their despising eyes made me feel cold."

Ye's father was sent to a farm to work. Ye Xiaogang had to work in another farm for a year before entering a factory where he worked for six years until he was 22.

"My colleagues in the workshops were friendly and helped me a lot, but I could not play the piano any more. I turned to reading and the only books I had were Lu Xun's ( a famous Chinese author who died in 1936). I was fascinated by his short stories."

Ye added: "No matter how hard I worked on the farm or factory, I always believed that I did not belong there. I never left music but just waited for opportunities." He dreamed of becoming a pianist.

When the decade of turmoil ended, Ye resumed playing his piano.

He practised hard every day but life played a little joke on him when he applied to the Central Conservatory of Music in 1978; the institute did not recruit piano students that year and Ye had to choose the composition department which was unfamiliar to him.

Ye's mother Shuiying Ho, who used to be a singer, encouraged him to make the decision. "She said as a pianist I would always play other's music, but if I was a composer, I would create music for instrumentalists," Ye said.

Thanks to his talent, Ye adapted himself to composition quickly and was soon acclaimed one of the "Four Talents" of the conservatory along with Tan Dun, Guo Wenjing and Qu Xiaosong.

In 1980, he studied in Professor Alexander Goehr's class at Cambridge University and received a full scholarship from the Eastman School of Music in the United States in 1987 to further his studies.

Ye's international career took off. He composed symphonies, chamber music and ballets, participated in many festivals and won various prizes.

In 1995, soon after he became the first Chinese musician contracted to Schott Music, the prestigious German publishing house, in its 225 years' history, Ye returned to China. He believed his roots, inspiration and essential ingredients for creation were in China.

China's flourishing cultural scene and booming economy helped him soon ride the crest of success but problems followed too.

His ex-wife, a young rising actress who had lived with Ye in the US for some seven years, asked for divorce and their US-born daughter was left with him.

As a leading composer in China, Ye was appointed to a number of positions in both academic and social organizations.

His name has also become increasingly connected with film and TV music that classical composers seldom work on.

All these have made some people doubt his abilities as a serious "composer."

"People pay more attention to film and TV music because there is more media exposure of these works than my classical pieces," he said.

"I never stop composing symphonies or concertos but most of them are commissioned by foreign orchestras or festivals and not played in China very often," he said.

"I cannot say I am Mozart, but I really feel I was born with a genius for creating music. Film or TV producers come to me because I compose well and fast. When I score melodies, it feels like I am turning on a tap. Being productive does not mean being non-artistic.

"And I have to admit that I like to compose for film or TV productions, not because it is easier than doing a symphony, but because I can often tour with the crew. Traveling gives me much inspiration for music and the meaning of life, and meeting and communicating with different people who have different views of art and life also help me to create," he added.

Delight and achievements have also been accompanied by hardship. Last year, when Ye began composing "Song of the Earth," as an answer to Mahler's great work of the same title, his wife gave birth to a baby with Down's syndrome.

Ye planned to take the hospital that provided maternity care for his wife to court for negligence. He complained that it was a medical accident, saying the hospital should have found out about it when his wife was in the early stages of pregnancy.

He said in the first few months, he was full of anger, groaning and cursing fate. "But as the baby grew day by day, I gradually calmed down. I asked myself, even though we might win the case, so what? The baby had no chance to recover and I could not let it ruin my family."

"This is life and this is perhaps a mission from God who let me take care of my daughter all her life."

For the composer, music is the focus of life. Besides teaching 40 hours every week, Ye's schedule is full with composing, concerts, tours and festivals.

Winning awards

 He finished his version of "Song of the Earth" in 2005 commissioned by the China Philharmonic Orchestra with the world premiere of the first four movements on February 18.

The complete work, with six movements, was heard in August this year in Berlin at "Young Euro Classic" Festival.

In May, he was artistic director for the Beijing Modern Music Festival and his "South to the Clouds" premiered to wide acclaim.

The following month saw him composing "Cantonese Suite" for the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra for their tour of the United States and Japan. In July his sestet "Lotus" was premiered by the Macao Symphony Orchestra.

In August, Ye was invited to compose music for two modern dramas.

Meanwhile, he was so stirred by a TV documentary about the Chinese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) that he paid a visit to the massacre museum in Nanjing. He then scored a cello concerto "Nanjing," which premiered at Ye's Compositions Concert in the Beijing Music Festival in October.

Now the composition at hand is "Tide Waves" for next year's 600th anniversary of the birth of the city Tianjin.

The awards are flooding in. On Saturday, the score he composed for the film "Taihang Mountains" won the 2005 Golden Rooster for the best film music score.

Some awards are quite common for a composer, such as the "Golden Bell Award" issued by the Chinese Musicians' Association. Some are more rare for a classical composer, such as the "Award for Special Achievement in Chinese Contemporary Film Music" issued by China Film Foundation.

And there are prizes that are very strange indeed for a composer. For example, last year the men's fashion magazine "Esquire" called him the "Top Ten Stylist Esquire."

All prizes have won him admiration and respect. For his beautiful melodies a US critic called him the "Chinese Bach." Let's just hope Ye has many more years of composing in him and that happiness can inspire him as much as sadness has.

(China Daily November 25, 2005)