Chén Zhōng Shēn is both a famous bamboo flute player and a composer in Taiwan.

The style of Chén Zhōng Shēn’s compositions strongly features local music, which is

closely related to his childhood and personal background. Chén Zhōng Shēn first

learned and studied western composition techniques while he was in school. After he

graduated, he started to work in a professional orchestra. Such diverse exposure to

music has affected the ways Chén Zhōng Shēn composes music from every perspective.

The bamboo flute concerto, Bàn Xiān, was composed in 1991. Chén Zhōng Shēn

was commissioned by the National Taiwan Academy of Arts Experimental Chinese

Orchestra, the National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan (NCO) today, to compose the

concerto. The concerto was first performed by the bamboo flute player, Liú Zhì, at his

recital. Bàn Xiān has a bamboo flute version and a suona version. The bamboo flute

version was composed in 1991. The whole piece of the concerto is full of the love for

the countryside and local characteristics, and the ingredients of Beiguan music were

adapted in the composition. However, in order to make the concerto more of a Beiguan

music style, the piece was recomposed into a suona version in 1997.

The study discusses the analysis and interpretation of the flute concerto, Bàn Xiān,

to identify the composition techniques and musical materials in the composition that

the composer (Chén Zhōng Shēn) often uses. The discussion provides valuable insight

into the composer’s mind, which in turn makes the result of the study and the author’s

interpretation of the music closer to the composing idea of the composer. Hopefully, the

study would serve as a reference for players who are playing the flute concerto, Bàn

Xiān, in the future or for researchers who are interested in studying the compositions

of Chén Zhōng Shēn.