Bridging Worlds Through Music: Haihui Zhang on Inspiration, Culture, and Creativity
- WOMCO
- Apr 22
- 3 min read
Haihui Zhang was a Platinum Prize Winner in the Professional (No age limit) Category, at the 2025 Season 1 Saint-Saëns International Music Competition.
Biography
Haihui Zhang is a Chinese composer currently based in the United States. She holds a Master’s degree in Composition from Manhattan School of Music and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition at University of California, San Diego. She is a recipient of Waldorf 100 Composition Competition Grand Prize in Germany and is the youngest composer to collaborate with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. She currently studies under renowned composer Lei Liang.
Zhang’s unique compositional style lies in discovering musicality in subtle details and expressing it through a personalized, philosophical, and aesthetic lens. At the same time, she skillfully integrates elements of Asian culture and music into her works through a modern, diverse, and interdisciplinary approach.
As one of the most promising emerging composers, Zhang’s works have been performed internationally to great acclaim. She has been invited to many festivals and events, including the Chigiana Music Festival in Italy, the Waldorf Centennial Celebration in Germany, the Hangzhou Contemporary Music Festival, and the Chengdu "Autumn in Chengdu" International Music Season. Her orchestral compositions have won awards and received commissions, such as Hourglass, which won Third Prize in the Hangzhou Contemporary Music Festival’s “Art Creation Award” International Orchestral Composition Competition, and Four Rhymes, commissioned by the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra.
Her major works include Fall Fantasy, Fascinating Strings, Metamorphosis, Hourglass, Four Rhymes, Shadow and Sojourns in the Parallel World.
Could you share the inspiration behind your award-winning piece "A Journey To The West" and the message you hope to convey through it?
This work was inspired by my five-year journey through the vast grasslands of Gansu in western China. During this time, I encountered unforgettable landscapes: the cold clarity of the moon over the plains, the quiet, shadowed valleys illuminated by moonlight, and evenings spent listening to ancient legends told by local people. These experiences, filled with both poetic stillness and communal warmth, deeply moved me. Through this composition, I aim to convey the richness of these memories—to share not only the visual beauty of the journey, but also the emotional and cultural depth behind them. I hope listeners will find themselves immersed in this parallel world of simplicity, sincerity, and spiritual resonance.
What was your creative process like while composing "A Journey To The West"? How did you approach the structure and dynamics of the piece?
My creative process was grounded in documentation and reflection. While traveling, I recorded melodies sung by locals, captured images of their smiles, and made field notes of my impressions. These materials became the foundation for my musical language. I did not seek to replicate folk elements literally, but rather to distill, refine, and reimagine them through the expressive capabilities of the piano. Structurally, the suite unfolds like a journey itself—each movement shaped by contrasting imagery and emotional pacing. Dynamics play a central role in evoking spatial and narrative depth: from the expansive openness of the plains to the intimate voice of a solitary singer. The work embraces both stillness and motion, echoing the rhythm of travel and memory.
How do you feel about the response to your composition, and are there any particular emotions or reactions you'd like listeners to experience when they hear it performed?
I feel grateful for the responses this work has received, especially when listeners describe being transported or emotionally stirred. My hope is that the audience, while listening, may “see what I saw, hear what I heard, and feel what I felt.” I wish to evoke a sense of shared presence and emotional clarity, bridging my personal encounters with the listener’s own imagination. If even a single listener senses the quiet dignity of a funeral procession on a cliff, or the warmth of a bonfire song echoing into the night, then the piece has fulfilled its role as a vessel of memory and empathy.
