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A survivor of China's Cultural Revolution, Mr. Sheng earned an undergraduate degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music before fleeing China. After arriving in New York in 1982, Mr. Sheng attended Queens College, CUNY and Columbia University, studying with Leonard Bernstein, George Perle, and Hugh Weisgall, among others. Gerard Schwarz commissioned Mr. Sheng's H'un (Lacerations), a work expressing the anguish of the Chinese spirit, which made such a profound impact when it was premiered by Mr. Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony in 1988 that the New York Philharmonic scheduled it for its 1993 European tour, and the Poland National Philharmonic featured it at the 1994 Warsaw Autumn Festival.
Other commissions quickly followed from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Shanghai Symphony, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and from Yo-Yo Ma, David Zinman, Leonard Bernstein, Peter Serkin, and others. Mr. Sheng, who is currently a faculty member at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, served as composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony from 1992 to 1994 and as artist-in-residence at the University of Washington from 1994 to 1995.
