Deqing Wen (b. 1958) is a Chinese-Swiss composer, a professor of Composition at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and a member of the Societé Suisse pour les Droits des Auteurs d’Oeuvres. He is the artistic director of Shanghai Conservatory’s New Music Week, and features in Who’s Who in the World of Music, produced by Cambridge Biographic Centre. Wen studied at Fujian Normal University with Guo Zu-Rong; the China Conservatory of Music with Shi Wan-Chun and Luo Zhong-Rong; the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève with Jean Balisaat; and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon with Gilbert Amy. He was also a visiting scholar at Columbia University.

Wen’s works have won him international acclaim, and combine an original musical approach with the influences of Chinese traditional arts and philosophy. His vivid, emotive and accessible style has been praised by critics in China and Europe. Zhou Haihong of the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing) has described it as striking ‘a balance between complexity and clarity, between mystery and rationality, between shock and subtlety, between fantasy and rigour, and between exactness and profundity’. The Salzburger Nachrichten, reporting on a performance in 1999, remarked that ‘Wen’s music is so fresh, like morning dew; as exciting as a detective story and as enjoyable as an evening with the best of friends.’

His works have been performed at a variety of venues including the Festival Archipel, Festival Amadeus and the Davos Festival in Switzerland; Vienna Modern; ISCM World Contemporary Music Festival; Darmstadt Summer Course and Wittener Tage fur neue Kammermusik in Germany; Savolinna Opera Festival in Finland; the Asian Composers League Festival in Japan and Australia; the Hong Kong Arts Festival; and festivals in Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai. Wen has been honoured with concerts and masterclasses dedicated to his compositions in China, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Germany, Israel and the USA. His music has been published by Swiss Musical Edition, Barenreiter Verlag, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Press and the Beijing People’s Music Publishing House, and albums of his compositions have been released on a wide variety of labels.

Wen has been awarded the Prize of the State of Geneva 1993, the Prix du Festival of the 3rd Festival de Musique des Chateaux Neuchatelois, the Prix Cultura 1999 of the Foundation Kiwanis and the Composer Prize 2001 of the Foundation Leenaards of Switzerland.