A Performer's Guide to Selected Arias with the Composer's Perspectives
FitzPatrick, Carole
Arizona State University
2020
105
D.M.A.
Arizona State University
2020
Lu Pei (b. 1956) is a celebrated Chinese American composer who currently serves as a composition professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. His work is known for its varied use of Chinese folk tunes. He lived in the United States a long time, which cultivated within him abundant Western musical influences. The sound of multi-ethnic elements is greatly reflected in his own music. Writing an opera has always been his ultimate dream as a composer, and after many years of work, the opera The Third of March was completed and premiered in 2018 in Guangxi. It has received wide acclaim and has been a favorite of younger listeners. Lu Pei aims to bring young people to modern music and the Chinese opera, not only using traditional Chinese musical elements, but also adopts "reinvented" modern Western musical styles, giving a new identity to the Chinese opera is the main foci of The Third of March.