Renowned Chinese composer releases new original album

Some moments seem ordinary when they happen: a first cry, a first love, a first goodbye. Only years later, when looking back, do they reveal how much they shaped us.

For composer Yu-Peng Chen, those fleeting moments became the starting point for The Poem of Life, his new original album released on Sept 25 in collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon.

Written around piano and orchestra, the 12-movement album traces different stages of his life, not as a straightforward biography but as a musical collection of memories, emotions and reflections.

For many listeners, Chen is best known for composing video game music. His work, including music for the hit game Genshin Impact, has accumulated more than 2 billion plays worldwide. But The Poem of Life does not depart from that experience. Instead, it takes the storytelling skills he has developed through game music and brings them into a more personal musical language, designed for listening beyond the screen.

At an online sharing session for the album, Chen said he drew on some of his life's defining moments: the first experience of love, his first cry, his first loss, and, later in life, confronting time, looking back, and preparing for a final farewell.

Rather than following a fixed plot, the album unfolds like a long musical scroll made up of fragments. Some themes return throughout the work, changing slightly each time. Their recurrence gives the individual movements a sense of connection, allowing memories from different periods to echo one another.

The album also brings together musical traditions from East and West. Alongside piano and orchestra, Chen incorporates Chinese instruments including the guzheng, erhu, pipa and sheng, as well as the voices of opera performers Li Yi and Zhou Zhengzhong.

The project also features international classical musicians, including violinist Daniel Hope, mandolinist Avi Avital and cellist Philipp Schupelius, as well as the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra. Chen performs as the piano soloist.

Chen recalled his work with Hope, which DG arranged. During recording, Hope repeatedly explored the same musical phrase, approaching it from different angles to find the expression that best suited the music. Chen described the process as continual "tempering" — refining an idea until it revealed its fullest expression.

That idea of refinement runs through Chen's own musical journey.

From a composer whose work has reached millions of players through video games to an artist now working with one of classical music's most storied labels, Chen is bringing different parts of his musical life into conversation.