Red Plum Blossoms Chinese Chamber Music Concert

Yu Hongmei is an outstanding contemporary erhu player and educator. A professor and doctoral advisor at the Central Conservatory of Music, her solo album Mihu has won the Best World National Music Award in the world-acclaimed Indie Awards. She is the only Chinese musician to have been laureled with this honor in the 30-odd years since the Indie Awards were established. Professor Yu was also conferred the Pro Musicis International Award in New York. In February 2002, she became the first Chinese national instrumentalist to hold a solo recital at the Carnegie Hall in New York. Professor Yu’s recitals are known for their unpretentious, moving and passionate artistic styles, where player and instrument come together as one to bring the audience a near perfect interpretation of the score and her unique artistic sentiment. New York Concert Review once commented that “Her wonderful performance is riveting”, and “She is really an outstanding player who sheds light on the spirit of contemporary Chinese music culture”.

Organized by Professor Yu Hongmei, Shengfeng Chamber Ensemble is the first chamber orchestra in China to focus on stringed instrument music, with members drawn from the ranks of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students from the Traditional Chinese Instruments Department of the Central Conservatory of Music. Shengfeng strives towards development and innovation in Chinese chamber music in aspects such as mastery of techniques, sound control, artistic expression and stage presence. The ensemble has successively won top awards in the CCTV Traditional Instrumental Music TV Competition, the China Music Golden Bell Awards by the Chinese Musicians’ Association, and a gold award in the National Youth Traditional Chinese Instrument Education and Teaching Achievement Exhibition Activity by the Ministry of Culture, showing the unique new styles of traditional Chinese music.

Organized by Professor Yu Hongmei, the Artistic Exaltation Chamber Orchestra includes players of bowed string, plucked string, wind, and percussion instruments, a wide range of acoustics that enhances the expressive capacity of their performances. Members are drawn from the ranks of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students from the Traditional Chinese Instruments Department of the Central Conservatory of Music who compose and perform many original pieces of traditional Chinese chamber music. The orchestra has successively won a silver prize in the Wenhua Art Academy Awards, and a gold award in the National Youth Traditional Chinese Instrument Education and Teaching Achievement Exhibition Activity, both by the Ministry of Culture, as well as the first place in the professional traditional group finals of the CCTV China Instrumental Music TV Competition. The orchestra has also been invited to perform at several major events in China and abroad.

Strikeast Percussion Ensemble was founded by Yin Fei, a young educator at the Central Conservatory of music. Focusing on the preservation, innovation and development of traditional Chinese music, the ensemble is a contemporary Chinese percussion chamber ensemble that blends Chinese and Western percussion music techniques on the foundation of traditional Chinese culture. Members are drawn from the ranks of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students from the Traditional Chinese Instruments Department of the Central Conservatory of Music. In the year that it was founded, the ensemble won championships in four percussion segments of the CCTV China Instrumental Music TV Competition: the professional adult group, professional youth group, amateur youth group, and traditional chamber music group.