Bright Sheng

Bright Sheng, a composer, conductor, and pianist, is the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Music at the University of Michigan. In April of 1999, he received a special commission from the White House to create a new work for a state dinner, hosted by the president, honoring the Chinese Premiere Zhou Rongji. Sheng was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2001 and has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Naumberg Foundation, Copland Foundation, Michigan Arts Award, and a Rackham fellowship and a fellowship from the Institute for the Humanities from the University of Michigan.