National Class One Conductor. As a conductor who has worked with all professional Chinese orchestras in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, Yan has won the acclaim of the music circles in China and abroad for his artistic and conducting talents.

Under his baton, and in collaboration with the famous composer Zhao Jiping, the Symphony Orchestra section of the China National Symphony Orchestra made the soundtrack recordings for such award-winning films as Raise the Red Lantern, Ballad of the Yellow River, and Five Girls and a Rope.

Yan was awarded the "Cultural Medallion (Music)" by the National Arts Council of Singapore in September 2001. Since 2004, he has been a Visiting Professor in many music conservatories. Yan was awarded a Bronze Bauhinia Star (BBS) by the Chief Executive of HKSAR in 2004 in recognition of his remarkable achievements in Chinese music as well as his efforts in promoting Chinese music.

Yuen Shi-chun was born into a family of architects in Hong Kong, having studied civil engineering himself. He joined the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1974 and was appointed Liuqin Principal in 1987, and is currently the Research Development Officer (Musical Instrument).

He has been on the staff of the Chinese University and the Music Office of Hong Kong since 1980 and has groomed many outstanding musicians under his hand. He is currently an ex-co member of the China Folk Orchestral Music Society and a consultant to many manufacturers of musical instruments in China and other parts of the world. In 1993, he was appointed one of the Experts of Chinese Musical Instrument Improvement and the Technology Advancement Award Adjudication Committee of the Ministry of Culture. The modified instruments he created have been used in recordings and film tapes by radio and television stations. He has given performing tours and talks in Asia, Europe, America and Australia. For the past two decades, Yuen has been conducting a self-financed project dedicated to the improvement and design of Chinese instruments. He has re-created some of the ancient Chinese instruments dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). They include the Tang-style ruanxian, Tang-style wuxian and the quxiang (crooked-neck) pipa. He has created modified models of liuqin with double resonators and a ruanxian series. He was presented with a National Class Three Technology Advancement Award and a Class Two Technology Advancement Award from the Ministry of Culture of China.

The two families of modified instruments are now being used by Chinese orchestras all over the world, not only in China. Yuen also assisted his disciple, Cheng Tsui-pin, in the setting up of the first liuqin chamber ensemble in the world in Taipei in 1993. The ensemble has now become a notable group on the Taiwan music scene. He also assisted the Guangzhou No. 7 Middle School to set up a ruanxian ensemble in 1998. It came top in the Folk Music Section of the Schools Music Festival of Guangdong Province in 1999. In Hong Kong, he founded a ruanxian ensemble in 2002. Yuen has introduced academic research and performing arts for the re-creation and modification of modern instruments, thus casting influence on the international music and academic sectors. He was presented with the Award for Artistic Achievements by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Di Yang was born in Beijing in 1980. He showed a keen interest in music at a young age, and began learning the liuqin when he was only four, under Mr. Zhang Chunxiang. He was accepted by the Folk Music Ensemble of the Arts Troupe of the Chinese Youngsters¡¦ Activity Centre at the age of five as a soloist, and began his music training under Liu Xing in the same year. He has visited Singapore, Russia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan and France both as part of the delegation of the troupe and as a soloist.

Di is a winner of many competitions, including a Class Two Award at the 1987 National Junior Chinese Instrumental Competition (Primary School Section), another Class Two Award at the first Beijing City Instrumental Grand Prix for Primary and Secondary School Students in 1992, and consecutive Class One awards at the Beijing City Junior Chinese Instrumental Competition and the Beijing City Arts Festival for Primary and Secondary School Students between 1986 and 1993. He was under the tutelage of Zhang Xinhua, Wang Hongyi and Weiwei during that period.

Di entered the China Conservatory of Music with outstanding results in 1999, where he continued to receive training under Wei Wei. He joined the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra as a Liuqin Principal in 2004.

Born and educated in Hong Kong, Ho Kang-ming began learning the pipa at a young age. He has a keen interest in the ancient repertoire, particularly in the more lyrical and expressive wenban.

Ho was a full-time musician with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra between 1976 and 1980, having performed with the Orchestra in the U.K., Hong Kong and Singapore and in recording for radio and television. He is devoted to blazing new trails for Chinese instrumental music, and over the years, he has premiered new pipa pieces by Law Wing-fai, Chan Wing-wah, Richard Tsang and Man-yee Lam of Hong Kong, and Hsu Po-yun of Taiwan. In 1981, he joined hands with Ms Chan Man-chong, a pipa virtuoso in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in premiering Chan Wing-wah's Symphony No. 2 for double pipa and orchestra. It was a milestone in the history of Hong Kong music because it was the first time a Chinese traditional instrument shared the stage with a philharmonic orchestra in performing a modern work in Hong Kong. Ho left the music scene in 1982 and has been a businessman since then.

He picked up the pipa again in 1998 and formed the "Wind and Silk" group with his friends, Yuen Shi-chun, Tam Po-shek and Yu Siu-wah, with the aim of revitalizing the authentic timbre of 'silk and bamboo' and promoting Chinese traditional music

The Taipei Liuqin Ensemble was established in 1993 by vocalist of Chinese folk songs, Cheng Chui-ping, who is also its founding director and concertmaster. All its members are young musicians dedicated to the art of liuqin performance.

The aim of the Ensemble is to explore the possibilities of orchestrating Chinese plucked strings instruments to achieve breakthroughs and to discover new talents in the field. The acoustic concept of the ensemble is to use the liuqin and the ruanxian, both played with a plectrum, as the core instruments to give consistency in techniques while at the same time, create harmonious and pure tones. The fluidity of moving from low to high register with the daruan, zhongruan, xiaoruan, alto liuqin and soprano liuqin highlights the stylistic features of Chinese music and at the same time, creates a refreshingly different overall acoustic effect. The Ensemble is noted for its uniform performance standards, rapport between its members, and brilliant, rounded and richly varied tone colours. This type of configuration for a music ensemble has opened up a new form of performance and sound for modern Chinese music.

Since its first establishment, the Ensemble has given more than a hundred performances to critical acclaim. It has toured Guam, Honolulu, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Beijing and Guangzhou. Everywhere it went, it has received critical acclaim.

Chen I-chien comes from Taipei, and graduated from the Department of Music of the Chinese Culture University in 1995 where she studied Chinese Music. She was conferred the degree of Master of Fine Arts in 1998 by the University after taking the postgraduate course in Music Performance. Her teachers included Wang Cheng-ping, Cheng Tsui-pin, Wang Shi-jong, Wang Hsiu-chen, Chi Yung-pin, Cheng Shih-wen, Kuo Lan-li et al.

Chen was with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra between 1997 and 1999 as a full-time Musician (liuqin) and Acting Principal. She is currently a lecturer in the Chinese Music Department of the Tainan National College of the Arts.

Tai Pei-yao started learning the liuqin under Ms Cheng Tsui-pin when she was young, and has received coaching from other virtuosi in the art from such as Yuen Shi-chun, Zhang Xinhua and Gao Huaxin. She learned the pipa from Hsu Lun-chien at the age of thirteen, and won the first prize in liuqin and pipa solo in many Taiwan music competitions. She graduated from the Chinese Culture University studying Chinese Music in 1999.

She is a subject teacher at the Taipei Private Hwa Kang Arts School and a liuqin instructor of the Chinese orchestra of the Taipei Municipal Guang Fu Primary School.

In 1978, Liu Xing was admitted to the Shanghai Music conservatory, first at the Folk Music Department and later changed to the Theories of Composition in folk Music. His compositions include chamber works Between Heaven & Earth (Yueqin and Orchestra). He graduated in 1982, major in yueqin. He was assigned to work in the Heilongjiang Provincial Song & Dance Theatre upon graduation. In 1984 he wrote Folk Symphony No. 2. He has been composing on a freelance basis since 1985.

Liu¡¦s other compositions include zhongruan concerto In Rmembrance of Yunnan, Animal Suite, Plucked-string Ensemble April.