Learning never stops for students or their teachers, according to Prof. Bright Sheng, worldrenowned composer, conductor and pianist. Nothing is ever set in stone, he has noted. There is always a novel interpretation, an untried insight to add, a fresh synergy to explore.

It is exactly this type of vision that propelled Prof. Sheng to launch the Intimacy of Creativity, an innovative partnership between emerging composers and established musicians to refine new scores, held annually at HKUST since 2011. The now internationally renowned workshop and concert series has also shown just how fitting it is to have such an artistic showcase at a science and technology university – to highlight the on-going nature of the creative process and the crossover between inspiration and innovation.

Prof. Sheng’s life has similarly been a ceaseless quest to create and embrace the unknown. During the Cultural Revolution, he spent seven years in Qinghai, close to Tibet, where he absorbed the different folk music traditions of the region’s ethnic minorities. He later became a high-achieving student of composition at Shanghai Conservatory before moving to another totally different world of sound in the US. Prof. Sheng studied for his MA at City University of New York and Doctor of Musical Arts at Columbia University. He also met Leonard Bernstein, who became his mentor.

Harmonizing east and west in pristine realms of sound, Prof. Sheng’s success as an artistic force speaks for itself. He has been commissioned and had his work performed by top international institutions and artists, including Yo-yo Ma and Kurt Masur. The White House asked him to compose a piece and play it at a state dinner held for then Chinese premier Zhu Rongji. He received an elite “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation. His music was featured at the Beijing Olympics. In 2016, the San Francisco Opera premiered his opera Dream of the Red Chamber and earlier this year the opera was a sell-out at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

As an educator at the University of Michigan for over 20 years and coordinator of music courses at HKUST’s School of Humanities and Social Science since 2010, Prof. Sheng’s courage and originality have shown students the importance of striding beyond their comfort zones if they wish to become the creators of the future. Whether performing artists or scientists and engineers, without risk, nothing can be new, he believes. With the unknown comes the promise of revelation.