Chen Gang

Still a student at the Shanghai Conservatory, Chen Gang wrote the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto with He Zhanhao in 1959 — a single movement drawing its material from Yue opera and shaping it to the Western concerto model. He taught at the conservatory as a professor of composition. Born in Shanghai in 1935, he studied with his father and with Ding Shande, and he died in 2026. A later concerto takes the story of Wang Zhaojun as its subject, and his music has been recorded for Marco Polo and Naxos. The Chinese Golden Bell for Music honoured him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2017.