Born in 1946, Zhou Chenglong is an active and prolific composer. In 1959 he entered the high school of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, majoring in the Chinese bamboo flute. After graduation three years later, he began to work in an army art troupe, successively as musician, composer and conductor. In 1979 he began to study in the Composition Department of Shanghai Conservatory, and after graduation in 1984, joined the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, promoted the next year to the position of deputy director of the orchestra. Zhou has been tenaciously pursuing a novel and compact style of composition, and has striven to develop compositional techniques to demonstrate entirely new features in Chinese music, both in scope and in depth.