Flower Riddle (Chinese folksong) arr. Julian Yu, performed by Ken Murray

This piece is taken from a concert recorded for Altamira guitars. For the full program see:
   • Ken Murray — Altamira Home Concert from th...  

Julian Yu is a Chinese/Australian composer well known for his arrangements of Chinese folksongs.

Born in Beijing in 1957, Julian Yu settled in Australia in 1985. He studied composition at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, later joining the teaching staff there, and from 1980 to 1982 studied at the Tokyo College of Music with Joji Yuasa and Schin-ichiro Ikebe. In 1988 Julian Yu was a Composition Fellow at Tanglewood where he studied with Hans Werner Henze and Oliver Knussen.Julian Yu has won many awards for composition and his work has been performed at many international music festivals including four times at ISCM World Music Days (Switzerland in 1991 and 2004, Mexico in 1993 and Luxemburg in 2000), five times in the Asian Composers' League (ACL) festivals, at the Huddersfield Festival, the Shanghai Spring Festival (2004), the Munich Biennale (1988), and the Melbourne International Festival (1996).

Yu believes that quality and beauty in music come from something deeper than the sound produced: that they spring from the pattern of thought, the inner laws or structure of the music, and that it is this inner pattern which gives integrity and individual character to a work.