Huang Yijun (Born 4 May 1915; Died 11 October 1995) was a Chinese conductor and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Born in Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...

 into a musical family, Huang exhibited great musical talent from a young age. His father, a strict man, taught him organ and violin, and Huang taught himself a variety of Chinese and Western instruments, including piano, harmonica, erhu

Erhu

The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles...

, yangqin

Yangqin

The trapezoidal yangqin is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, originally from Middle East and Persia . It used to be written with the characters 洋琴 , but over time the first character changed to 揚 , which means "acclaimed". It is also spelled yang quin or yang ch'in...

, jinghu

Jinghu

The jinghu is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the huqin family, used primarily in Beijing opera. It is the smallest and highest pitched instrument in the huqin family.-Construction:...

, yueqin

Yueqin

This article is about the Chinese Yuequin. The Vietnamese Đàn nguyệt is also often referred to as a 'moon guitar'.The yueqin is a traditional Chinese string instrument...

 and even Beijing and Kun Opera

He moved to Shanghai in the mid 1930's, where he joined in orchestral recordings for the Pathé

Pathé

Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...

 label. In 1935, he joined the Shanghai Worker's Orchestra, which later became the Shanghai City Symphonic, under Huang's leadership, where he meet other early Chinese conductors such as Cao Peng

Cao Peng

-Background and Early Career:Cao Peng was born into one of the most influential families in the once thriving trading centre of Jiangyin, related both to Cao Yuyuan, the famous court censor of the late Qing, and more distantly to the great Cao family that had risen in the world from the 18th century...

. In a thirty year career at the orchestra, he recorded a number of film-scores, and accepted invitations to conduct symphonies in Finland (1956), the USSR (1958) and, at the express invitation of Herbert Von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

in 1981 Berlin.