Barring a specific time period you may have in mind the first person who comes to my mind would be Xi Kang (also called Ji Kang.) He was one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, and lived during the transition between the Wei and the Qin. He composed for the qin, and unfortunately the little surviving music written from the time has musical notation that lacks instructions on how to interpret it, so we couldn’t even play it as it was written even if any music proven to have been written by Xi Kang survived the ravages of time.

The lack of knowledge for how to interpret musical notation isn’t the only problem in Chinese music history, very few people specialize in it, so the scholarship is rare. One could perhaps blame it on the notation issues, or the fact that most common musicians in Chinese history were blind and could not write their own experiences, or that the cultural ties between music, ritual, and cosmology historically put the emphasis on ritual and cosmology over the actual performance of music, but that would missing something held in common across all music history. Most historians of music or musical instruments don’t play the instrument, and most musicians don’t write history. This last point is one that comes up frequently if you focus on music history, to the point that I’ve read it explicitly stated by Erica Brindley, Douglas Alton Smith, and even Xi Kang.

So back to Xi Kang. In his Rhapsody on the Zither (qin) in the Wen xuan he says that all the prior fu written on musical instruments is derivative and that “These works are beautiful to be sure, but they do not fully convey the inherent principle of the instrument. If one were to deduce the reason for this, it would seem that it is basically because they do not understand music.” [translation by Knechtges.] Pretty blatant criticism there, since mastery of music and poetry were considered by the Confucian Ru to be pathways to sageliness. For music this pathway is demonstrated in 3:23 and 7:8 of the Analects. 3:23 says “‘This much can be known about music. It begins with playing in unison. When it gets into full swing, it is harmonious, clear and unbroken. In this way it reaches the conclusion.’” 7:8 says “The master said, ‘Be stimulated by the Odes, take your stand on the rites and be perfected by music.’” 14:12 says, “‘A man as wise as Zang Wuzheng, as free from desires as Meng Gongchou, as courageous as Zhuangzi of Bian and as accomplished as Ran Qiu, who is further refined by the rites and music, may be considered a complete man.” The specific choice of the word “harmony” here has a lot to be said about it, since music was tied to the health of the state. If the music of the state’s culture was not harmonious then the state was in disarray and decline, but here I’ll just point you to Brindley in my sources listed below. Xi Kang “became entangled in a certain affair and was executed” by the last Wei emperor, so within this framework the Wei emperor really made a bad choice, considering how the state of Wei ended soon after. [Gulik, quoting the Annals of Wei.]

Regarding ensembles of musicians, they usually included, and for public ritual music heavily relied on, bronze bell sets and lithophone sets. They also employed strings (zithers), winds (flutes, mouth organs), and drums. There was a huge difference in music intended for public ritual and music intended for private enjoyment. The best surviving examples of ensemble sets of instruments are those from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng. The tomb contained groupings of instruments for large ritual ensembles and chamber ensembles.

So, to wrap up, since most music was either tied into functions and reflections of the state or into Ru sagely pursuits there are few composers who are known because of their compositional or musical ability. Usually they were known for their pursuit of self perfection, while their musical ability was only one avenue of that pursuit.

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Sources:

Brindley, Erica. Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China.

Confucius. The Analects.

Gulik, Robert Hans Van, and Kang Ji. Hsi Kʻang and His Poetical Essay on the Lute.

Gulik, Robert Hans Van. Lore of the Chinese Lute.

Knechtges, David R. Wen xuan. Vol 3.

So, Jenny F. Music in the Age of Confucius.