Venhui Ži

Wenhui Xie (China) As a resident composer at the MacDowell Colony, Wenhui Xie’s music has been aired as part of “Composer of the Week” on BBC Radio 3, and has been performed throughout China, the United States and Europe by performers including the China National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of Our Time in the United States, the Orkest de Ereprijs in the Netherlands, the Accademia Chigiana Ensemble in Italy and the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra in the United States. Currently, Wenhui is an associate professor of composition at the China Conservatory. She serves as composer-in-residence with the China HuaXia Chamber Ensemble. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her principal profes-sors in composition have included Wanchun Shi, Joel Hoffman, George Tsontakis and Azio Corghi.

When the Sun-rays Come
My eyes already touch the sunny hill,

going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

it has its inner light, even from a distance –


and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave …
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.
From The Walk (1924) by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Robert Bly