As a young man, David Wen left home to work in the mines and pursue music.
Years later, Phenomena II won second prize in an international composition competition in the Netherlands.
From mine carts to music staves, he rose from hardship to the world stage through self-study and determination.
Now in his eighties, he still guides young musicians, passing on more than sixty years of experience and artistic vision.
Wartime Birth · Hungry Childhood
David Wen was born in Taipei in 1944, under the shadow of war and air raids.
Months later, his family fled south and moved repeatedly in search of safety and work. Survival came before dreams.
His father’s work was unstable, so his mother supported the large family through sewing and dressmaking lessons.
Hunger defined Wen’s childhood. Meat and eggs were rare; even sweet potatoes were scarce.
The children caught fish, frogs, field mice, insects, and birds, sharing whatever they found.
Hardship shaped his character. He learned to face adversity, respect all people, remember every kindness, and help others whenever possible.
Strings Awaken · Ears Learn
Though his father struggled professionally, he loved literature and played the violin.
At seven, Wen Lung-Hsin learned his first notes and bow strokes from him. Music brought the young boy pure joy.
By age ten, Wen knew language was his window to the world. With few books available in postwar Taiwan, he listened daily to NHK on shortwave radio.
Though he understood nothing at first, he gradually learned Japanese by ear.
He later studied English through school, American radio, and reading, while exploring other languages and dialects.
He learned language—and music—through listening. Records, broadcasts, scores, and concerts became his teachers.
This keen ear later shaped his inner hearing and inspired his work in recording, electronics, and acoustics.
Leaving Home · Finding Humanity
His father wanted him to study medicine, but Wen knew music was his path.
In junior high, he left school and home to push mine carts, returning only after his mother pleaded with him.
After high school, Wen was admitted to three colleges but chose music at the National Taiwan Academy of Arts.
The decision strained his relationship with his father for years, until a bedside apology finally brought them peace.
Forging Sound · Defying Odds
At the National Taiwan Academy of Arts, Wen excelled in violin and composition.
With few modern music resources available, he turned to foreign texts and studied recording, electronics, acoustics, and circuitry—blending sound, science, and imagination.
After graduation, he joined the Taiwan Provincial Symphony Orchestra as a first violinist.
The orchestra became his sound laboratory, where he tested ideas with musicians and refined his scores through real performance.
Wen won major composition prizes in 1970 and 1971.
In 1972, he entered the Gaudeamus International Composers Competition in the Netherlands with The Chinese Zodiac for violin and prepared piano.
With help from his teacher and money borrowed by his mother, he made the long journey to compete against more than one hundred composers.
He reached the finals, returned home to national attention, and immediately prepared for another attempt.
Unable to afford the next trip, Wen boldly called Taiwan Provincial Chairman Hsieh Tung-min.
Hsieh met him, encouraged him, and secured travel support.
Wen never waited for an opportunity. He knocked on doors—and opened his own path.
Calligraphy Sings · Phenomena II Soars
In 1975, Wen returned to the Gaudeamus competition with Opus 1974 and Phenomena II.
Both reached the finals, and Phenomena II won second prize, making him the competition’s first Asian laureate.
温隆信參加荷蘭高地慕司國際現代音樂作曲比賽獲得第二名證書
Inspired by Chinese calligraphy, the work transformed the energy, motion, pauses, and balance of brushstrokes into time, tone, dynamics, and space.
Rather than quoting traditional melodies, Wen translated the spirit of Eastern art into a modern musical language.
That same year, his score for The Unseen Clouds won a Golden Horse Award.
Recognition in both avant-garde music and film revealed his refusal to divide art from popular culture.
For Wen, awards were never the destination. What mattered was finding a distinctive voice rooted in his own culture yet open to the world.
He went on to compose across classical music, film, pop, jazz, Chinese music, percussion, children’s music, and theater.
Planting Music · Exploring Sound
In the 1980s, Wen devoted himself to early childhood music education.
He wrote 358 children’s songs, founded a publishing company, and produced widely popular audio and reading programs.
He believed children’s music should do more than entertain or instruct.
Through rhythm, language, movement, and sound, it should awaken imagination and plant a lifelong sense of beauty.
Wen also explored electronics, acoustics, recording, and natural signals—even studying whether plants might possess their own forms of sound and communication.
温隆信手繪之植物音源採集工程圖解
In 1989, he founded an electronic music center at Fu Jen Catholic University.
Moving from composition to education and institution-building, he became a pioneer in shaping Taiwan’s musical landscape.
Crossing Oceans · Nurturing Talent
From 1975 to 1985, Wen studied, worked, and traveled worldwide, building ties across cultures. In 1992, he became an artistic director in Paris, connecting Taiwan and Europe and bringing Taiwanese artists to global stages.
He moved with his family to the United States in 1995 and later served as composer-in-residence at New York University, advancing cross-cultural exchange and Taiwanese music scholarship.
After 9/11, Wen relocated to Southern California. With his wife, Kao Fen-Fen, he founded the To-Shiang Chamber Orchestra for young musicians.
Named after an ancient wooden night watchman’s clapper, the ensemble became a call to the next generation.
Wen blended music with literature and the arts, arranged works for each student, and expanded the program through concerts, camps, tours, and master classes in the United States, Taiwan, and Malaysia.
Fifty Years · Boundaries Broken
In 2010, Wen marked fifty years of composing with a concert at Taiwan’s National Concert Hall. Works spanning classical, contemporary, and jazz showcased his boundary-crossing vision.
The finale, Tattoo I, united Japanese percussion master Toru Kitano, Taiwanese tattoo artist Hsiao Shih-Che, German jazz trio triosence, and leading Taiwanese musicians abroad, transforming tattoo lines and life stories into sound.
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Blending percussion, classical music, jazz, and visual art, the concert became both a career milestone and a landmark in Taiwan’s cross-disciplinary music scene.
Color into Sound · Music into Art
Painting was not a late-life pursuit for David Wen. He had loved it since childhood and once studied with noted Western-style painter Shih-Chiao Li .
Music became his first calling, but years later, painting returned as another outlet for his creative energy.
温隆信的自畫像(上)與用其作品當封面的桌曆(下)
To Wen, instruments have tone color, while paintings have visual color. Music unfolds through time; painting holds form in space.
温隆信在畫室與其部分作品
In both, he first sees the whole structure within, then waits for its energy, direction, and layers to emerge.
His cross-disciplinary work is therefore more than mixing media—it is a way of thinking.
Calligraphy becomes music, color becomes sound, technology expands hearing, and education becomes creation.
Creating Always · Inspiring Generations
After rising from postwar poverty to the world stage, Wen now values legacy over recognition—passing his experience on so younger musicians can go farther.
He tells them that art rests on two foundations: solid technique and genuine compassion. Ideas without discipline cannot endure; skill without heart cannot move people.
Inspired since childhood by Beethoven and Bartók, Wen wrote his first string quartet at twenty-eight and has completed six to date.
He also composed Symphony No. 13: Kelang–Keelung for Keelung’s 400th anniversary.
In 2024, his students honored his eightieth birthday with the concert Passion at Eighty, where he conducted his own works.
This October, he will return to Taiwan for Wen Lung-Hsin’s Portraits in Strings, performing with leading young musicians.
Now in his eighties, Wen still reads, reflects, composes, and paints every day.
From the mines to the world stage, he has spent more than sixty years crossing genres, media, and generations.
With one hand, he writes the music of his time; with the other, he lifts the bows of the next generation.
His legacy is more than scores, paintings, and awards—it is a path forged through hardship, opened to the world, and turned back to light the way for others.
