Zi Lan Liao

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Zi Lan Liao is an international concert circuit performer on the guzheng (Chinese zither). She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Halland has toured Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Finland, the USA and Australia. She participated the WOMAD Recording Week in Bath.

Liao began to learn the guzheng at the age of three when she lived in Guangzhou (Canton). By the age of 9 she was winning prizes in China, including the prestigious National Youth Music Competition. She continued her music studies at Chetham's School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, now specializing in the western concert harp besides Chinese traditional dance and the guzheng.

Apart from playing traditional and music written by Chinese composers, Liao also has had composers outside China write music for her, which has widened her repertoire from classical to contemporary and electronic music. Her collaborations include Indian singers, African percussionists, and western concert flauists as well as Peter Gabriel and Nigel Kennedy. Her collaboration work with other world artists was released on the Realworld Various CD. The track Heaven And Earth, a collaboration with her husband Jah Wobble was released on CDs by Island Record in November 1995 worldwide. Her guzheng Concerto The River and The Five Tone Dragon had been broadcast around Europe. She recorded music for the Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor.

Liao is now one of the staff of Pagoda Cultural Club in Liverpool(L1), and helps to teach the children of the youth orchestra.