Kunqu

Ms. Qian, Yi began her study of classical kunqu at the Shanghai Academy of Performing Arts at the age of ten and joined the Shanghai Kunju Company after graduation. At the age of twenty, Qian received the Outstanding New Orchid Buds Award, given by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to young performers. In 1998, Qian Yi was cast in the lead role of Lincoln Center Festival’s epic nineteen-hour production of The Peony Pavilion, which played at major international festivals in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Since coming to the U.S., Ms. Qian has continued to work in classical Chinese theater, while also starring in numerous adaptations of Chinese opera in the context of western theater. In 2008, Qian Yi made her debut in western opera, singing a leading role in the San Francisco Opera’s new production of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter. She currently lives in New York.

Guo Jingqiang is a graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music where he studied erhu with Wei Zhongle, Lu Xiutong, and Chen Junying. He has been a member of the Shanghai Orchestra, the Shanghai Philharmonic, and the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Music Orchestra. His tours of Japan and Singapore have won him wide acclaim. Mr. Guo is an erhu soloist and conductor for the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York.

After graduating from Shanghai Chinese Drama School, Mr. Huang Shi-Rong  served as the conductor of the famous Shanghai Beijing Opera Troupe for more than 30 years. Several of the Troupe’s popular productions that he conducted won national awards. He has been invited to perform in the USSR, Japan, Hong Kong and US.  Mr. Huang was a member of the orchestra for the Lincoln Center production of The Peony Pavilion.

Michelle Yang is graduated from Tianjin Institute of Arts, Beijing Cinema Academy and Central Broadcast Institute, where she studied jingju (Beijing Opera), dance, movie and TV acting, and broadcasting. She was a member of Tianjin Institute of Beijing Opera for many years. A winner of many awards in jingju and dance contests, Ms. Yang appeared in several popular Chinese movies and TV series. She is currently a teacher of Kunqu Workshop and participates in Kunqu Society’s public programs.

Chen, Tao, an internationally acclaimed Chinese flutist, music educator, composer and conductor of Chinese orchestra, is the founder and director of the Melody of Dragon, Inc., the co-founder and director of Melody of Dragon & the Youth, the artistic director and conductor of the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York and conductor of New Jersey Buddha’s light Youth Chinese Orchestra.

Graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in 1986, Mr. Chen has served as a professor in the Chinese music department. Since coming to the U.S. in 1993, he has performed and lectured throughout the country. In addition to traditional forms, Mr. Chen has won a reputation as a pioneer in the world of new music. His playing can be heard on several soundtracks of Hollywood movies including “Seven Years in Tibet,” “Corrupter” (with the New York Philharmonic), “The White Countess” and the PBS documentary “Under the Red Flag,” the “Voice of China,” “Becoming American” and an Italian movie “Singing behind Screen”. In the US, The New York Times called him a “poet in music” and his playing “a miracle of the oriental flute.” While on tour in Germany in 1989, the maestro Herbert von Karajan praises him as an artist whom “performed with his soul.”