Beijing Evening News (Reporter Gao Qian) Why is it difficult for young composers to get ahead? In the classical music world, this is a commonplace question, but Yang Fan, born in 1984, is obviously a non-standard answer.
In 2019, the dance drama “Heavenly Road” and the dance drama “The Electric Wave That Never Die” won the Wenhua Award at the same time. The common composer Yang Fan is the intersection of the two works. Since then, creative invitations have flooded in. At the beginning of 2021, Yang Fan’s symphonic poem “Fathers” and the symphony “Rebirth from Fire”, a symphony on the theme of war with Guan Xia, Shao En, and Huang Kairan, have been staged across the country. How should young composers break the game? Perhaps some enlightenment can be obtained from Yang Fan.
Take an unusual step
The road to music started unusually
Yang Fan’s musical journey after the 80s began to be a little unusual.
Yang Fan grew up in a military compound in Nanjing. The family has a strong artistic atmosphere. His uncle is a director of quyi, his aunt knows harp and bel canto, his uncle is a film actor, and his cousin started to learn piano at a very young age. At grandmother’s house, Yang Fan always likes to listen to his cousin practicing the piano. At the age of four and a half, he also became one of thousands of piano boys.
But Yang Fan is not “honest” in practicing piano, and the teacher sometimes finds that he will change his score. “I think it sounds better like this.” After hearing Yang Fan’s answer, the piano teacher suggested that he might consider learning to compose.
However, “composing is far more difficult to learn than imagined”. For a while, Yang Fan felt frustrated because he couldn’t figure out the way. During those years, he heard a lot of “blaming”. At the end of 1995, Yang Fan began to travel back and forth between Nanjing and Shanghai, learning composition from Dunelbo. In 1997, he was admitted to the composition department of the High School Attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and continued to study under Dunlborough. “Ms. Deng is very strict, and there is nothing else to do with Ms. Deng, just writing.” Yang Fan was fortunate to have laid a solid foundation at the beginning of composition.
In high school, because Deng Erbo was getting older, the school notified Yang Fan and classmate Sun Chang to change the main teacher. That day, they sat on a swing on the campus and looked at people passing by. A beautiful and tall woman hurriedly passed by, and Yang Fan and Sun Chang looked at each other: “So beautiful, it must be the parent of the student.” Unexpectedly, the “parent” turned back after a while and it was their new teacher Ju Wenpei. After talking about their hobbies, the first class ended.
When we met again, Ju Wenpei, Yang Fan and Sun Chang made an appointment at the Shanghai Art Museum to see an exhibition by the surrealist master Dali. Shuttle between those abstract and individual works, Yang Fan opened his eyes. “For next week’s homework, let’s write about your feelings about this exhibition.” Ju Wenpei said to them.
“Teacher Ju is very good at encouraging and enlightening.” Yang Fan liked the cafe next to the school, where Ju Wenpei also taught them. The talkative teacher only has no room for negotiation, which is the time to hand in homework. Students in the composition department often use “no inspiration” as an excuse, and Ju Wenpei is unmoved. She has a longer-term consideration: in the future, students will definitely encounter writing without inspiration. What she needs to train is the writing ability to deal with this situation. So many nights, under the emergency lights in the toilets of the dormitory, there were Yang Fan and his classmates moving their chairs and writing quickly.
The Shanghai Conservatory of Music is prosperous and romantic. Young Yang Fan likes to eat something good, likes to buy records, and his living expenses are often “squandered” at the beginning of the month. With the rather simple idea of ”making money by craftsmanship”, when he was in college, he began to play the piano in the hotel. The hotel has its own set of “rising system”: First, you can play pop music in the lobby, and you can choose freely. Those with higher levels can participate in jazz performances in the lounge. Singer, keyboard, drummer, trumpet or saxophone are the basic configurations. Sing seven or eight songs.
“Jazz has the interest of’playing’.” A song of three or four minutes is usually doubled. Sometimes, foreign musicians write and draw on napkins and it becomes a piece of music. Ten minutes later, the lights are on and the performance is about to begin. Changing back and forth in the complicated rhythm and style, Yang Fan often bounced and sweated. In those two or three years, there were a lot of thrilling times, but more gains, “Compared with school, it is a completely different music world. Improvisation, understanding of complex harmony, cooperation with others… Many concepts are It was established at this time.”
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