Lai Deh-Ho

Lai Deh-Ho (born 1943), is a Taiwanese composer born in Yuanlin, Changhua. He has received numerous awards, including the Wu San-Lien Awards, National Award for Arts, and The Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music. Lai served as the Director of the Research Department at National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and taught at the National Taiwan University of Arts and Taipei National University of the Arts before retiring in August 2008. Till now, he's still producing music continuously. Some of his notable works include “The Tale of the White Serpent" (1975), the dance theater “The Dream of the Red Chamber” (1983), “Requiem: September 21st 1999 in Memoriam” (2009), and the symphonies “Four Impressions of My Motherland” (2009) and “Mazu's Bodyguards” (2016). Lai's works blend elements of Eastern and Western music and reflect his sensitivity to the society.
== Life and Career ==
Lai Deh-Ho was born in 1943 in Yunlin, Changhua in Taiwan as the youngest of his generation. In 1958, he began studying the organ at Yunlin Experimental High School and self-studied Harmonics while teaching at Lu-Shang Elementary School and Fu-Hsing Elementary School. In 1964, he enrolled in the National Taiwan University of Arts to study Composition, where he was taught by Chen Mao-liang, Shih Wei-Liang, and Hsu Chang-Hui.
In 1968, Lai established The Sunflower Music Assembly with other musicians, including composers Chen Mau-Liang, Ma Shui-Long, Yu Chang-Fa, Shen Chin-Tang, and Wen Lung-Hsin. That same year, his graduation production "Dreaming Far Away" won the Wu Po-Chao Composition Award. In 1973, Lai served as the director of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and joined the Asian Composers League (later renamed to the Asian Composers League Taiwan National Committee in 2005).
In 1975, Lai began teaching Counterpoint at the Department of Music at Tunghai University. The following year, he received a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) scholarship to study Music Education for Young Children at the International Orff Schulwerk Forum Salzburg, and he also studied Modern Western Music at Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. Upon his return to Taiwan in 1980, Lai became a lecturer in the Department of Music at the National Taiwan University of Arts. At the same time, he helped Ma Shui-Long establish the Music Department at The National Institute of the Arts (later renamed Taipei National University of the Arts in 2001). In 1982, Lai was transferred to the Music Department of the National Institute of the Arts.
In 1984, Lai received the 7th Wu San-Lian Award in the Music category. In 1995, he received an artist fellowship from the National Cultural and Arts Foundation and studied abroad in New York. Upon his return to Taiwan in 1998, Lai joined Taipei National University of the Arts as a Professor in the Department of Music. In 2010, he was awarded the 14th National Award for Arts, and in 2014, his work "Elegy" was awarded the Best Creation prize at the 25th Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music. In 2019, his work "Bite Tongue Poem" was awarded the Best Composition Prize at the 30th Golden Melody Awards.
Category:1943 births
Category:Taiwanese composers
Category:People from Changhua County