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Zhou Wang

A respected performer of the Shanxi Zheng genre, Zhou Wang is a Professor of Guzheng at the China Central Conservatory of Music, and the Director of the Chinese Music Department of CCOM. She also serves as Vice President of the China Guzheng Society. Zhou Wang learned from her father, the world class musician in the Qin Zheng Shanxi genre Zhou Yanjia. She then studied with Maestros Zicheng Gao, Zheng Cao, Sihua Xiang, Xiuming Yang, Shange Fan, and Zhaoyuan Shi, combining north-south flavors and inheriting the true art of Zheng playing from different genres. Joining the Central Song and Dance Troupe in 1977, Zhou Wang has been an active performer in China and abroad. She was invited by the National Record Association to record The Tune of Qin Mulberry, a classical masterpiece of Shanxi genre. As a musical ambassador and a soloist, she has toured internationally on behalf of the Ministry of Culture on many occasions. As a scholar of musical exchange, she has given lectures at institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2014, she held a Zheng recital at Carnegie Hall.   Zhou Wang has served as judge and chairperson for many national and international competitions: the Golden Bell Award, Mandarin Award, Central China Television, National Chinese Instrument Competition, and Hong Kong International Zheng Competition. In over forty years of teaching, she has been dedicated to fostering many outstanding young guzheng players, who have won prizes in major competitions around the world. Many of them continue careers as educators to teach the younger generations. In promoting Chinese music, Professor Zhou Wang has published recordings of many core classical repertoires such as High Mountain and Running River and albums featuring traditional guzheng solo works of several traditional genre classic pieces: Famous Melody of the North, Geniuses Traditional Zheng as well as many internal course teaching materials for the China Central Conservatory of Music. Her publication, Qin Zheng Qin Ren Qin Sheng, has been widely cited in Chinese musical journals. Zhou Wang also arranges and composes traditional and contemporary Zheng musical works. She arranged the Shanxi genre Zheng pieces Huan Music, Lao Long Cries the Sea and Ming Fei’s Resentment (a guzheng and erhu duet). Together with Professor Zhenyu Huang, she has composed the contemporary Zheng pieces Fantasia in the West, Reflection, and Slowly Voice ??

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Junzhi Cui

Cui Junzhi is a leading pioneer of the modern art of konghou (Chinese harp) performance. With her incomparable style, she continues to shine on the world's musical stage.

A recipient of many prestigious accolades, she has been honored with a medal from UNESCO and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the United Nations. She was awarded first prize in the World Broadcasting Competition, garnered a Gold Award at the Philadelphia International Music Festival for Chinese Composition Performance, and earned the title of "Outstanding Artist" at the inaugural International Harp Competition in the United States. Moreover, she consistently excels in national competitions for instrumental music and composition competitions sponsored by the Ministry of Culture in China.

Cui serves as a leader in numerous konghou-related arenas, from performance and education to international outreach and multimedia recordings. With the endorsement of several major music schools, she pioneered the establishment of the konghou performance major. Invitations to perform and lecture have taken her to dozens of countries, where she has broken new ground with her konghou concertos. She wrote the book The World of Konghou and edited the inaugural "Central Conservatory of Music Examination Syllabus," for konghou performance. These works have served as milestones in the developing landscape of modern konghou artistry.

Currently, she holds the titles of National First-Class Performer, professor of konghou, and Master's Degree supervisor. Additionally, she serves as the president of the Konghou Research Association, which operates under the auspices of the China Musicians Association. She joined the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in 2023, where she serves as master teacher to majors in konghou performance in the US-China Music Institute.