MA, SI CONG  BIOGRAPHY

A native of Haifeng, Guangdong, where he was born in 1912, Ma Sicong (Ma Sitzon) was distinguished as a composer and as a violinist. He began his instrumental study and pursued his interest in folk-music when he was at a primary school in Guangzhou. In 1923, at the age of eleven, he went to France for the first time to study the violin there, returning to China in 1929, after finishing his studies. As one of China's first violinists, he gave concerts in Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and other places.

In 1930 he went to France for the second time, now to study composition. A year later he was again in China, now prepared to begin his career as a composer. After the foundation of the People's Republic of China, he held the positions as director of the China Central Conservatory of Music, vice-chairman of the China Musicians Association and chief editor of the periodical Yinyue Chuangzuo (Creation of Music). He was also Artistic Director of the Chinese Philharmonic Orchestra and the Taiwan Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1967 he settled in the United States, where he died in 1987.

Ma devoted his whole life to creating a new national identity for Chinese music. He pioneered the use of folk idioms, often adopting fragments or motifs from folk tunes, crafting them into his own musical writing. His vast output includes symphonies, concertos, chamber music compositions, operas, ballet music as well as various forms of vocal music. Of this extensive output, Ma’s violin music is widely regarded as one of his most important contributions.

His important works include two symphonies, the orchestral suite Song of the Mountain Forest, the cantatas Democracy, Motherland, Spring and The Huaihe River, violin pieces Berceuse, Rondo No. I, Inner Mongolia Suite, Tibet Tone Poem, Idyll, Lantern Festival Celebration and Xingjian Rhapsody, two compilations of New Versions of Folk-songs and many other compositions. During his residence in the United States, he wrote music for the ballet Sunset Clouds and composed the opera Rebia.