France's Society of Authors, Composers and Editors
of Music (SACEM) awarded its Symphonic Music Grand Prix to Chinese
composer Chen Qigang, Xinhua News Agency reported today.
Quoting SACEM sources in Beijing the day before,
the report said Chen was the first non-French composer to receive
the prize.
The symphony prize is the society's
highest marking a musician's contribution, and over the past 150
years has been given Camille Saint-Saëns, Charles Gounod, Vincent
d'Indy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, and Olivier Messiaen.
The SACEM was founded in 1850 by composer Hector
Berlioz to protect musicians' intellectual property rights. Since
then it has had more than 100,000 members, including Gioacchino
Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, and managed the
copyright of 25 million musical pieces.
Chen was born into an artistic family and began his
music education at a young age. He graduated from the Central
Conservatory of Music in 1983, majoring in composition. From 1984
to 1988, he studied in France with a grant from the French
government and was accepted by Messiaen as his only student.
He has won many major international awards for his
compositions, including first prize in the French Ministry of
Culture's International Composition Contest and the 27th
International Contest of Symphony Composition in Trieste,
Italy.
Chen is now based in France and is artistic
consultant to Cité de la musique in Paris.
(Xinhua News Agency December 9, 2005)