Zheng Xiaoying

Zheng Xiaoying (born 1929) is the first woman conductor in China. Zheng was the chief conductor of the China National Opera House (CNOH) and she formed and conducted at the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also been a dean in the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (CCOM).

Zheng was born in Yongding, Fujian. Zheng is of Hakka descent and felt that her family valued education. Zheng first studied at Jingling Women's University in Nanjing in 1947. Zheng took part in the Chinese Communist Revolution, where her job was to train a large song and dance troupe and conducting Chinese operas. She was working in Henan province.

Later, Zheng studied at the CCOM in 1952. Her first conducting teacher was Nicolai Tumascheve, who taught chorus-conducting. In 1955, she was sent to a special course taught by Soviet conductors where she was the only woman in the class. She taught at the CCOM between 1956 and 1960. Zheng then studied opera conducting at the Moscow Conservatory between 1960 and 1963. In 1962, she was first Chinese conductor to conduct an opera in a foreign setting when she conducted "Tosca" at the Moscow National Theater. After Moscow, she returned to CCOM and taught until the Cultural Revolution interrupted her work. During the revolution, there "was no classical music in China".

Zheng became the Principal Conductor at the CNOH in Beijing in 1977. She was involved in the "influential performances" of The God of Flowers, La Traviata, Carmen, Le Nozze di Figaro and Madam Butterfly. In the 1980s, she helped French conductor, Jean Perrison, make the first Chinese translation of Carmen when he visited Beijing.

...
Wikipedia