(b Dongyang county, Zhejiang province, 29 Aug 1924). Chinese dizi bamboo flute player. He trained as a teacher in Zhejiang, following this with an education in both Western and Chinese music and a course of legal study in Shanghai (1949). During the 1940s he was active as a music teacher in his home county, joining the Zhejiang Song and Dance Troupe (Zhejiang Sheng Gewutuan) as dizi soloist in 1956. At this time he was already active as a composer and arranger of music for the dizi, and taught pupils at both the Zhejiang College of Arts (Zhejiang sheng yishu xuexiao) and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Employment of such techniques as circular breathing in compositions such as Sanwuqi (‘Three-Five-Seven’), based on a melody from Zhejiang traditional wuju opera, illustrates Zhao’s attempts to contribute to the new solo repertory for his instrument. However, Zhao’s middle-class background implicated him in the anti-rightist campaign of 1958, and five years of imprisonment ensued.
Further periods of captivity and victimization followed during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76); not permitted to perform during this phase, Zhao concentrated on the development of refinements in dizi design and on teaching a succession of pupils, many of them now leading professionals. Since 1976 Zhao has resumed his former posts and interests, also publishing two sets of essays and teaching materials for his instrument.
ed.: Zhao Songting de dizi [The dizi of Zhao Songting] (Hangzhou, 1957)
Dizi yanzou jiqiao guangbo jiangzuo [Broadcast lectures on dizi performance technique] (Beijing, 1983)
Diyi chunqiu [A lifetime of dizi art] (Hangzhou, 1985)
F.C. Lau: Music and Musicians of the Traditional Chinese Dizi in the People’s Republic of China (DMA diss., U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1991), 58–61
Zhongguo yinyue cidian, xubian [Dictionary of Chinese music, supplementary vol.], YYS pubn (Beijing, 1992), 254–5
Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, ed.: Zhongguo zhudi mingqu huicui [Special selection of famous pieces for Chinese bamboo flute] (Shanghai, 1994), 71–91, 503–4
JONATHAN P.J. STOCK