Young composers get chance to understand Chinese culture

Ye is an award-winning composer, with works featuring Chinese culture and music heritage.

He has also produced electronic, experimental and conceptual works.

He says the aim of the program is to have "an international platform for composers to understand traditional Chinese music culture and also to create and perform innovative works. It is a window for cultural exchange".

Ingenious ideas have to be used to make China's culture interesting and Chinese art easy to understand, he says.

A few years ago, Ye composed a piece for soprano and orchestra, Drinking Wine by the Stream's Choice, based on an essay by Wang Xizhi (303-361) called Lanting Ji Xu, which documents a literati gathering in the fourth century.

Ye presented the piece at music festivals abroad, performing the music, as well as telling the story of how ancient Chinese scholars partied.

According to Wang's essay, artists, writers and poets would sit at the river bank with a special cup that floated on the water.

When the cup floated near one of them, he would compose a stanza and drink the wine.

Ye even had an installation designed to allow the audience to play the game.

"It is a great device to tell a story to an international audience, and let them participate in the creative experience," he says.

"We want to have in-depth communication with other countries.