Zhou Yi

Who is Zhou Yi?

Zhou Yi is a Chinese pipa player.

Zhou is from Shanghai. As a child prodigy, Zhou began studying music at the age of five and gave her first public recital at six. She trained for four years on the pipa before enrolling in the elementary school of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, one of China's premier music schools. Two pipa students, out of thousands, were selected for the position in the school. At the age of eight, she won the first prize of the Shanghai Spring Music Festival. At the age of sixteen, her music was recorded and published by New Era Sound & Video Company of Guangzhou and Nanjing Video Publishing House of China. These recordings are used for future generations of music students to study as ideal renditions of these pieces.

After graduating with a BFA in music from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Zhou moved to New York and has been heard in various venues throughout the United States. She has performed in places such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, John Hancock Hall, Pickman Concert Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also played at New York University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and the Longy School of Music. Zhou has performed in The Peony Pavilion, The Orphan of Zhao and Ghost Lovers with the Lincoln Center Festival, the Asia Society’s “Wen Ji: Eighteen Songs of Nomad Flute”, and has been heard at the Shen Wei Dance Arts’ “Second Visit to the Empress”. She has performed at the Spoleto Festival, USA in 2002 and 2004, and the American Dance Festival in 2005.