With no restraints

Zhang Ying, musician and composer. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Her parents bought her a piano even before she was born. Though she has played Chopin and Beethoven since childhood, the singer-songwriter never followed the tradition and enjoyed adapting classical music works into her own style.

Zhang first knew about jazz from Western pop songs she listened to as a teenager. Then she listened to different jazz styles. One of her idols was Antonio Carlos Jobim, the Brazilian singer-songwriter, who was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style.

Unlike most of her classmates at Central Conservatory of Music, Zhang belonged to the "non-mainstream" category. When other students wrote atonal music (music that does not have a tonal organization of sounds), Zhang liked writing personal and emotional works.

Her teacher, renowned Chinese composer Guo Wenjing, supported her music style, though Zhang deviated from the classical music path. "Zhang's solid classical music training allows her to display her talent in jazz," Guo says.

Unlike many Chinese musicians, who studied abroad to enrich their knowledge, Zhang spent only a short time in France－a master's class in 1997. At the end of the class, she amazed her teachers with an a cappella work, titled Beijing Hutong, in which she had six girls singing and repeating one syllable resembling the sound of a pigeon's whistle, while Zhang sang a Chinese folk song, called Snail.

The idea came from a typical scene of Beijing in Zhang's memory. On a sunny winter afternoon, she was at a hutong near the conservatory, when she saw the courtyard's gray eaves and pigeons flying in the sky.

"When we performed in an old church, some birds flew by. The sound of their wings matched perfectly with the singing. I can still remember how good I felt," recalls Zhang.

Being a teacher was her last career choice. However, since she started teaching in 2005, she took on the class as her second stage, sharing her performance and songwriting experiences with students. She says that it's not necessary for all of her students to become jazz musicians, but she hopes to broaden their visions with jazz.

"In the past, I was very self-centered and considered jazz as my own world. But after releasing the album, I found that there are people sharing my music and I feel responsible for letting more people know about Chinese jazz music," says Zhang.