Guzheng Musician Qu Yun

Qu Yun was born in Xi’an in 1946. In 1959 she entered to the middle
school attached to the Xi’an Conservatory and studied guzheng music
under the coaching of Zhou Yan-jia and Gao Zhi-cheng. During her
shooling years she was regarded as promising student by the teachers.
After graduation she played guzheng in the Shanxi Folk Art Troupe.
During the period she went to the country to gather folk tunes and
furthered her study by learning from the folk artists. The well-known
scholars Mr. Cao Zheng and Mr. Li Shi-gen generously gave her the
invaluable guidance. These combined laid the solid foundation to her
later performance, composing and theoretical research.

Qu Yun went with the Imitation Performance Troupe of Tang Music and
Dance throughout the country in which she played solo zheng. The
guzheng song of “Frangrant Hill Drums”, which she composed and
performed, was awarded as the best music both in the 6th Asian music
forum and Chinese Nationwide “Cup of the Mountain City” Folk Musical
Instrument Contest.

After studying and learning from guzheng artists of different styles, Qu
Yun has developed her unique performing style during long time life and
performance experience. Her solo performance of Chinese zither in Hong
Kong and Qin zheng concert and lecturers in 2000 turned to be a big
success, for which, she was acclaimed as the scholar guzheng
performance artist. Her gorgeous, fluent, implicit, and natural
performance was so impressive that Mr. Cao Zheng praised her as “the
rebirth of Xue Qiongqiong, the top one guzheng performer in Kaiyuan of
Tang Dynasty (A.D. 713)”.

In order to revitalize the Xi’an drum music, an excellent ancient musical
heritage, she studied, tested, and composed the music with lyrics and
even sang herself. Her singing was neat subtle, and elegant. She made
a lot of experiments in maintaining the original music style with
combination of Kun Opera as a way to explore the root of Chang’an
ancient music and the origin of Chinese music.

As professor and graduate student supervisor of School of Art, Shangxi
Normal University, Qu Yun is mainly dedicated into studies and teaching
of guzheng performance. She also had many publications on the history
of Xi’an drum music and scores and was well received by the domestic
and international academicians in this field.