"In the first few years we had the passion to work in the remote frontier, but the romantic idea was finally beaten down by the hardship and the boring life," says Zhou, who also suffered from arthritis.

He broke his back in an accident at work and was sent back to Beijing in 1974. His mother who always hoped he would become a musician invited her colleagues from the Central Conservatory of Music to teach him at home.

One scene from Zhou Long's opera Madame White Snake, commissioned by Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival. Photos Provided to China Daily

Zhou says his first opera Madame White Snake (2010), which won him the Pulitzer Prize, is dedicated to his mother. "She always thought I should be composer," Zhou says.

After his recovery from the back injury, his parents connected him with a performing troupe in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, where he did everything from composing, conducting to playing percussion and even opening the curtain.

The troupe was located in the border area of Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, so Zhou learned folk music and instruments there.

In the summer of 1977, Zhou heard the country would restart the national college entrance examination. He returned to Beijing to apply for the Central Conservatory of Music.

More than 1,000 people applied for the composing department, and Zhou was one of the 32 admitted the next spring. Among them were big names — including Chen Yi who later became his wife, Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Guo Wenjing and Ye Xiaogang — and together they made the famous Class of 1977 on the international music stage.

After graduation in 1982, Zhou first worked at Beijing's Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra for two years. In 1985 he gained a scholarship for a doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University.

In 1987, a friend introduced him to a pianist who asked him to write a piece. Zhou created Wuji and started his exploration in atonality. He scored quite a few chamber music pieces that many considered too serious, academic and experimental. But he did not give up, and eventually grabbed the top prize in Germany for his work Ding in 1991.

After that came many award-winning works. The highlight was Madame White Snake, commissioned by Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival.

His next work will premiere at the Beijing Music Festival in October. It is inspired by Chinese poet Qu Yuan's poem Nine Songs.

"Madame White Snake has been a huge success, so we wanted to commission Zhou to write one more piece. I know he loves traditional Chinese culture including the ancient poems and calligraphy. So after discussion we decided to write something for the famous poet Qu Yuan," says Tu Song, program director of the festival.

Jiang Dong / China Daily