Standout work at ISCM Tallin, Estonia

Frank Brickle, RSF’s delegate to the 2019 ISCM World Music Days in Tallin, Estonia, has reported, “I was blindsided” by the solo piano piece by Yulan Qui, calling it, “smart and crafty for anyone so young.”

Remembering that in Beijing last year, two remarkable composers from Shanghai stood out for their unique, sovereign sound, clearly independent of both the US post-minimalists and European modernism, I asked Brickle if he detected any such influences. “Not a trace”, he replied. This independence is very encouraging.

YULAN QIU (b. 1976, China)
“Butterfly Dance” for piano solo (2013)
Kadri-Ann Sumera (piano)

Yulan Qiu (b. 1976) enrolled in the middle school attached to the Guangxi Arts Institute in 1988 where she studied piano. She was admitted to Guangxi Arts Institute in 1995 and started learning music composition and theory. She worked as a teacher after graduating in 1999. She was sent to further her studies in music composition at the Central Music Academy in 2007. She is now an associated professor and vice director of the music composition section. She gives lectures on music composition, sight singing, ear training and form analysis. Apart from teaching, Ms. Qiu has had two books printed. They are “Walking Along the Mountains and Rivers – The Piano Music of Guangxi Folk Song Style” and “Sight Singing Music with Musical Instruments of Guangxi Folk Song Style”. She is the author of two textbooks. They are “The Monophonic Sight Singing Textbook on Guangxi Folk Song” and “Music Textbook” which is used for experimental teaching in China’s nine-year compulsory education curriculum. She has had several essays published, including “An Exploration on Innovative Music Composing”, “A Study on Music Composing based on Modern New Poems – the Structure and Beauty of I love my Motherland”, “An Example of Content Submitted to Form – the Form Analysis of Liszt’s Symphonic Poem”, etc. She is the host of a number of important projects. “Walking Along the Mountains and Rivers”, her piano solo, was sponsored by the National Art Foundation in 2018. “A Study on Sight Singing and Ear Training Course Reform for Music Recording Majors” was selected as one of the Guangxi college teaching reform projects in 2016 and sponsored by the Department of Education of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Two of her projects were supported by the Guangxi Arts University. They are “A Study on Music Composing and Performing using Stringed Instruments Based on Guangxi Folk Song” in 2017 and “A Study on Modern Poems and Music Composing”.

– William Anderson