Cheng Yu (musician)

Dr Cheng Yu playing the P'ipa

Cheng Yu is a Chinese musician. She is internationally renowned as a performer of the pipa, a Chinese four-stringed lute, but also plays the guqin, a seven-stringed zither, and is a virtuoso, scholar and specialist of Chinese music.

She gained a BMus in China and an MMus in the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on Ancient Xi'an Music and regularly performs throughout the UK.

She plays, records and researches widely on traditional and contemporary Chinese music as well as cross-cultural music collaborations in the UK, Europe and other places. In her recent project in 2005, she successfully re-created a modern version of the lost Tang Dynasty five-stringed pipa, based on the study of old Tang dynasty pipas and lutes from the East Asian cultures.^[1]

She is the founder of the UK Chinese Ensemble in 1994 and the London Youlan Qin Society in 2003.

Biography

Cheng Yu was born in Beijing, but grew up in Gansu Province in Northwest China when her family was exiled during the Cultural Revolution. She studied the southern Pudong style of pipa with her father from the age of seven and was further trained by pipa masters in the north-western Pinghu style later. She also studied and graduated with distinction in the Xi'an Conservatory of Music in 1987 for the guqin. She won the "outstanding pipa player" award in China in the same year she was selected as a pipa soloist in the China Central Orchestra of Chinese Music in Beijing.

She moved to London in the 1990s and currently teaches pipa and guqin as well as research at SOAS, University of London.

Collaborations and projects

• Asian Music Circuit: Chinese Music Summer School from 2003
• ARC Music
• SOAS
• Music House
• Zomba
• Extreme Music
• Realworld
• Damon Albarn
• Monkey: Journey to the West
• Tan Dun
• Chen Yi
• Xu Yi
• Barrington Pheloung
• Randy Edelman
• Karl Jenkins
• Trevor Jones
• Fabien Tehericsen
• London Sinfonietta 1996
• Lyon Ensemble Orchestral Contemporian 2000-01
• Avignon Orchestra 2003
• Edinburgh String Quartet 2004
• Youth Music: Faber Music Songbook 2005
• Jan Kuiper
• Purbayan Chatterjee
• Zoumana Kiarra
• Jan Hendrickse
• Tim Garside
• Stephen Dydo
• Gillian Carcas
• Gyewon Byeon

See also

Please see: References section in the guqin article for a full list of references used in all qin related articles.

References

External links

• UK Chinese Music Her official site with up-to-date news and events

Guqin (古琴) Aesthetics Construction Contemporary players History Literature Notation Playing technique Popular culture Qinpu Schools Societies Strings Tuning Yaji Melodies Ao Ai Guangling San Hujia Shiba-pai Jieshi Diao Youlan Liu Shui Meihua Sannong Pingsha Luoyan Xiao Xiang Shuiyun Yangguan Sandie Schools Guangling Jiuyi Lingnan Mei'an Pucheng Shu Yushan Zhe Zhucheng Societies London Youlan Qin Society New York Qin Society North American Guqin Association Historical personages Bo Ya Cai Wenji Cai Yong Confucius Guo Chuwang Ruan Ji Emperor Song Huizong Xi Kang Zhu Quan Players Cheng Yu Gong Yi Guan Pinghu Li Xiangting Lin Youren Wang Fei Wu Jinglüe Wu Zhaoji Zeng Chengwei Zha Fuxi Zhang Ziqian