(b Wuxi, Jiangsu province, 23 Feb 1909; d 24 April 1984). Chinese Suzhou tanci ballad singer. Zhang’s career began at the age of nine as a religious ballad singer travelling with his uncle from one village to another. Reaching Hangzhou in 1921, Zhang joined the Hongqingtang Shaoxing daban troupe. Over the next five years he performed in a number of operatic and ballad genres, including Beijing opera. Zhang took Zhu Yongjun as his Suzhou pingtan (tanci) balladry teacher in 1926, improving his skills as a singer-instrumentalist in this important Chinese narrative genre.
Zhang used his knowledge of the repertory of other ballad styles to develop new pingtan texts, and began to perform in this style across Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. From 1929 he became a successful singer in Shanghai, his reputation increasing over the following two decades. In 1951 Zhang was assigned to the newly established Shanghai People’s Pingtan Troupe (Shanghai Shi Renmin Pingtan Gongzuotuan).
Zhang’s style, developed continuously throughout his career, has become one of the primary ‘schools’ of pingtan performance. Influenced initially by the singer Ma Rufei, Zhang later adapted elements of the performance style of Xia Hesheng and Jiang Yuequan, adding his own rhythmic and melodic innovations and the results of his early encounters with such forms as Beijing opera. For instance, in his version of The White-Haired Girl (Baimao nü) (1958) Zhang extends the standard vocal range upwards a minor 3rd.
See also China, §IV, 1(ii).
Zhongguo yinyue cidian, xubian [Dictionary of Chinese music, supplementary vol.], YYS pubn (Beijing, 1992), 250
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