Jiang Wenye

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Jiang Wenye (江文也, June 11, 1910 – October 24, 1983) was a Taiwanese composer, active mainly in Japan and later in China. While known in the West by his Chinese name, the three Chinese characters that form his name are pronounced "Kō Bunya" (こう ぶんや) in Japanese. In his compositions, which range from pieces for piano to choral and orchestral works, he merged elements of traditional Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese music with modernist influences. Due to the political turmoil surrounding his life, he came to be largely forgotten during the latter part of his life. After his passing, however, his work has started to gain new recognition in East Asia as well as in the West. Jiang was born in 1910 to Chinese parents in Tanshui, Taiwan – a Japanese territory at the time, and so his nationality was Japanese from the birth. In 1923, he came to Ueda, a small town in the prefecture of Nagano, Japan, to attend secondary school. He later proceeded to the Tokyo Engineering and Commerce Advanced School (presently Musashi Institute of Technology) where his major was electrical engineering. At the same time he also started to attend evening classes at the Tokyo Music School (today part of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). Initially, he was active as a singer, and in 1932, discovered by his choir leader, he became a baritone singer for the Columbia Record Company. A few years later he would become a member of the Opera Company led by one of Japan's foremost opera singers

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