In conversation with Xingzimin Pan: finding a contemporary Chinese choral voice

For Xing Pan, composing a choral work often begins long before the first note is entered into a score. The starting point is usually language: its meaning, its sound and, in Mandarin, its tonal contour.

Words, tone and musical meaning

Much of Pan’s recent work has been created with the poet and translator Chen Yang, whom he first met around a decade ago. What began as an experiment developed into a sustained creative partnership. ‘We tried one piece and it worked very well,’ he says. ‘After that, for almost all my new works, I would ask her to write the text.’ Chen has since become sought after by other Chinese choral composers and has even had a concert devoted to works using her lyrics.

Pan also turns frequently to ancient Chinese poetry. There are practical reasons: historic texts avoid the complexities of copyright. More importantly, they offer a deep cultural resource. ‘There is a lot that you can explore from an ancient Chinese poem,’ he says.

The words themselves can also be subject to external constraints. Pan says that religious references remain sensitive and that lines which seem innocuous to a composer may be interpreted differently by a concert organiser. Occasionally a choir contacts him shortly before a performance to say that some words may need to be changed. ‘Sometimes it is just one word,’ he says. ‘I said yes for the sake of the concert.’

Setting Mandarin creates a particular compositional challenge. The language’s four tones can affect meaning, so Pan often shapes melodic contour around the natural inflection of a word. The third tone, which falls and then rises, is especially useful. ‘When I write a character with the third tone, I may make the melody go down and then up. In that way, no one will misunderstand the text.’

Tonal accuracy is only one factor. Pan also considers grammar, meaning and emphasis. Important verbs, adjectives and nouns may be lengthened, placed higher or given greater dynamic weight, while function words should not be stressed. He does not claim to have invented the technique, but he has worked to integrate it into a recognisable musical language of his own.

Defining Chinese contemporary music

Asked whether ‘Chinese choral music’ is a meaningful category, Pan is cautious. China is too large and stylistically varied for a single label. Pan’s work as chief editor of the specialist choral publisher Temperament Music has forced him to think carefully about classifications, particularly while developing the company’s English-language website.

One category he uses is ‘Chinese contemporary’. A work may be rooted in an ancient Chinese poem or another clearly Chinese subject while using modern harmony, extended techniques and a musical language that differs from both Western contemporary music and traditional Chinese idioms. Alongside this sits music shaped by the traditions of China’s many ethnic groups.

Pan also identifies a lyrical, neo-Romantic strand: music with expressive melodies and harmonies, often concerned with love, relationships and shared human experience. It is not quite pop music, but neither is it modernist in the academic sense.

A newer trend is the choral arrangement of familiar pop songs. The reason is partly commercial. Many recently established choirs perform in concert halls and need to sell tickets, so recognisable music is attractive to general audiences. Yet the arrangements often occupy a legal grey area. ‘Most of them are not authorised by the copyright holders,’ Pan says. China has copyright law, but enforcement can be expensive and impractical. A composer may spend more pursuing a case than can realistically be recovered.

Pan understands why choirs take shortcuts. The country has a huge and growing choral sector but not enough new repertoire to meet demand. Many ensembles also have limited funding. Temperament Music has paid to secure authorisation for some arrangements, but that route is beyond the means of many community choirs. ‘I hope in the future we can find a way to make every party happy and make it fair.’

A vast and expanding choral culture

There is no definitive count of choirs in China, but Pan believes the number comfortably exceeds 100,000. Every city has competitions at different levels, schools have choirs and education departments are promoting the idea of the ‘class choir’, in which each school class becomes a singing unit.

The range is broad: mixed choirs, treble choirs, men’s choirs, a cappella groups, community ensembles and high-level concert choirs. Public bodies support singing for education and community participation, but Pan also points to its economic impact. Major festivals bring choirs, families and visitors into host cities.

Most activity remains domestically focused, although international exchange is growing. The China International Choral Festival in Beijing alternates with a more nationally focused festival, while other cities host their own international events. Individual conductors and composers are also invited through local choral associations. Pan helped introduce New Zealand composer Chris Artley to Shenzhen and believes groups such as VOCES8 would be warmly received in mainland China.

Visa changes have made some international visits easier, although bringing a large overseas choir remains more complicated than inviting a single artist. Pan nevertheless sees clear appetite for greater exchange.

From trombonist to composer

Pan’s path into composition was anything but direct. As a child he listened repeatedly to cassette recordings at his grandmother’s home, from The Lion King soundtrack to Beethoven symphonies. His uncle played trombone in a small local band and suggested that Pan should learn an instrument. Offered drums, trombone or piano, the young Pan chose drums. His uncle promptly decided that he would learn trombone instead.

He played for around 12 years and entered university as a trombone major, but by then his listening had expanded to Bartók, Ligeti and other twentieth-century Western composers. ‘Trombone did not satisfy my musical ambition any more,’ he says. He transferred to composition and, because his teacher was relatively traditional, taught himself much of the modern repertoire by listening and experimenting.

He also conducted student orchestras and wind ensembles, but found the role exhausting. ‘I am an introverted person. As a conductor, you have to do the whole thing. I would rather sit at home and finish all the jobs.’ After further study in the United States, where he completed a master’s degree and a PhD, he still had little experience of choral music.

That changed in 2012 when conductor Zhou Kai asked him to write a piece. Pan used one of his own poems because he did not know where to find a suitable text. The resulting work, Poem One, received an honourable mention in a composition competition organised by the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM) and led to further commissions.

One of those came from Hong Chuan, conductor of Shanghai’s Echo Choirs and founder of Temperament Music. Pan’s suite What Flowers Tell You included Dandelion, the movement that became his best-known work, including among Western choirs. ‘It went viral,’ he says. ‘After that, people started commissioning new choral pieces one after another.’

Balancing ambition, singers and audiences

Pan’s early training encouraged complexity, atonality and what he calls ‘academic’ music. Choral writing forced him to reconsider. Instrumental and vocal music operate by different standards, and a composer must balance personal expression with what singers can perform and listeners can receive.

He has continued to write highly demanding works, including Night at a Mountain Temple, while also producing more accessible music for less experienced choirs. In recent years he has explored minimalism, drawing on a long-standing admiration for Philip Glass, John Adams, Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki. ‘When I was a student, I was not allowed to write that kind of music. After I graduated, nobody could force me.’ The result is not pure minimalism, but the use of repeated processes and simplified materials within his own idiom.

Commissions mostly come from mainland China, although international performances are increasing. The normal agreement gives the commissioning choir exclusive use for two years, after which the work can be published. Fees vary according to the organisation, relationship and terms. Pan charges public institutions more when they have funding and may reduce the fee for community choirs doing work he considers meaningful.

He composes at a computer with a digital piano beside him, but the real work begins internally. He memorises the text, allowing fragments of melody, harmony, colour or texture to accumulate before writing. ‘I start from a very small idea and develop it. When I start a project, I might not know the whole form of the work, but when I finish the first section, I will probably know what the second and third sections are going to be like. The overall form will present itself as the music evolves.’

The first rehearsal or performance can become part of the compositional process. Pan sometimes revises a passage after hearing it sung, either because the realised sound differs from what he imagined or because a choir’s unintended interpretation works better. Conductors may also suggest practical changes during rehearsal. ‘Sometimes they sing it wrong, but it sounds better,’ he says. ‘Then I will rewrite it according to what they really did.’

Publishing and the unfinished requiem

Pan has recently left a university teaching post to work full-time as a composer and chief editor at Temperament Music. The specialist publisher now represents 93 Chinese choral composers. Its catalogue is primarily digital, both to reduce printing risk and to attach licensing information to scores.

One project has remained unfinished for several years: a full-length requiem commissioned by National Taiwan University. Its concept changed after the sudden death of Taiwanese composer Liu Hsin-Chang, whom Pan had met only briefly. Other losses followed, including friends and two dogs, and Pan began to imagine each movement as a memorial to a different life.

He completed the Introit during a choral composers’ forum in the United States, where the deadline imposed by a final concert forced him to write. The remaining movements have proved harder. ‘It is not a light thing to write,’ he says. ‘Somehow, deeply in my mind, I was reluctant to return to it. But I have to. I should try.’

That mixture of responsibility and curiosity runs through Pan’s work: responsibility to words, singers, commissioners and composers’ rights, combined with an urge to find a contemporary Chinese choral voice that is recognisably his own.

**_Xingzimin Pan** is a Chinese composer recognized for his work in contemporary choral music. His music is distinguished by a refined harmonic language and a keen sensitivity to poetic atmosphere and nuanced emotional expression._

His works have been performed internationally and are published by leading publishers, including Schott Music. He has collaborated with ensembles such as Youth Choir 'Kamēr…', The Princeton Singers, Sydney Chamber Choir, Vox Venti, Stare at the Sun, and the Ontario Youth Choir. His honors include awards from major international competitions, including the IFCM International Choral Composition Competition, The American Prize, the RED NOTE Composition Competition, the ICC Jack & Anne Barnard Award, the Diane Loomer Award, Podium 'Choirs’ Selected Composer' Award, and the China National Arts Fund. In 2023, he was invited to the ACDA–Lehigh University Choral Composers Forum, and in 2024, his work was featured in concerts and workshops at the World Choir Games in Auckland.

Since its publication in 2016, his choral work Dandelion has become one of the most frequently performed contemporary choral works in China and has been widely adopted by international choirs as an entry point into Mandarin choral repertoire.

Pan holds a PhD in Composition from the University of Utah, where he served as President of the Utah Composers Collective. He has held academic positions as Assistant Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen School of Music, and as Associate Research Professor at South China Normal University. He is currently Chief Editor of Temperament Music, China’s leading choral publisher, and serves on the Executive Council of the Guangdong Chorus Association.

Xingzimin Pan performances at the 2026 Hong Kong World Choir Festival

Song of the River Town (江城子) 13 July – Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall Performed by Guangzhou Children’s Choir conducted by Zhang Zhanbi Poem I (诗 I) 14 July – Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall Performed by Youth Choir 'Kāmer…' conducted by Jurģis Cābulis