Sweet scroll music

Lyu Liang, composer of Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, is working with his teacher, composer Meng Ke, on music for the concert.

The main musical instrument employed in the dance drama is guqin (a plucked, seven-stringed instrument). For the new concert, the composers focused on showcasing the versatility of various traditional Chinese musical instruments, such as pipa (a four-stringed lute), guzheng (Chinese zither), Chinese drum and sheng (a type of wind instrument).

"We basically got inspired by musical works from the Song Dynasty when we created pieces for the dance drama. For the concert, those musical elements will appear more," says Lyu, who learned to play suona (a double-reed horn), bamboo flute and sheng as a child and studied music at an art school in Liaoning province.

In 2002, he came to Beijing to study at the Central Conservatory of Music, majoring in traditional Chinese music. He attributes his success to his teacher Meng, a composer with the China Oriental Performing Arts Group, who is known for writing the soundtracks to popular TV series, such as 2015's Nirvana in Fire and The Disguiser.