Born in the Siberian city of Nikolayevsk in 1895, Aaron Avshalomoff became familiar there with the sounds of China, before making his escape in 1917 through China to America. By 1918 he had returned to China, where he remained for the next 30 years, working to provide a synthesis between Western and Chinese music. In 1947 he moved to the United States to join his son, the conductor and composer Jacob Avshalomov. His music combines Chinese influences with Western techniques.

Orchestral and Stage Music

Avshalomoff enjoyed relatively little success in the United States. In Shanghai, where a number of Russian émigré musicians had settled, he had served as librarian at the Shanghai Conservatory and for a short period conducted the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. His opera Kuan Yin was written in 1924. Other works included The Dream of Wei Lien, the ballet pantomime The Soul of the Ch’in (Qin), Buddha and the Five Planetary Deities, the tone poem The Hutungs of Peking, three symphonies, concertos for violin and for piano, and the music drama The Great Wall, performed under the patronage of the two sisters Mme Sun Yat Sen and Mme Chiang Kai Shek. He wrote his Flute Concerto in Hollywood in 1948.