(b Shanghai, 12 March 1908 or 21 Feb 1909; d 1998). Chinese pipa (plucked lute) and qin (seven-string zither) player. Wei Zhongle was an early member of the influential Datong Ensemble, a group of Chinese musicians who met in Shanghai to improve their own performance skills and to develop from traditional and Western elements a new repertory of ‘national music’ (guoyue). Other than pipa and qin, Wei also learnt several instruments. From the 1930s onwards Wei held a succession of music teaching and performing posts at universities and colleges in Shanghai, one of the most notable of which was his founding of a traditional instruments department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in the early 1950s.
See also China, §IV, 4(iii).
Xu Lisheng: ‘Rang Zhongguo de minzu yinyue zou xian shijie: ji pipa yanzoujia, yinyue jiaoyujia Wei Zhongle’ [Let Chinese national music reach the world: a record of pipa musician and music educator Wei Zhongle], Youmei de xuanlü piaoxiang de ge – Jiangsu lidai yinyuejia, ed. Yi Ren (Nanjing, 1992), 180–84
Zhongguo yinyue cidian, xubian [Dictionary of Chinese music, supplementary vol.], YYS pubn (Beijing, 1992), 190
Zhongguo guanxian yuetuan, ed.: Wei Zhongle pipa yanzou quji [Collected pieces played on the pipa by Wei Zhongle] (Shanghai, 1994)
Chinese Classical Music: Professor Wei Chung Loh, rec. c1938, Lyrichord LL72 (c.1950)
Special Collection of Contemporary Chinese musicians, Wind Records CB-07 (1996)
Traditional Instrumental Pieces of Wei Chung-loh, rec. 1930s–1960s, ROI Productions, Hong Kong RB-961010-2C (1996)
JONATHAN P.J. STOCK