Zhi(Jill) Jiang 姜志, Soprano

Jill is a well-established and well-known soprano. She was awarded the title of National Class I Artist when she was with the National Song and Dance Troupe in Beijing. Jill received her national recognition and become one of the most popular folk song singers in China after she performed with the best-known artists in a nationally televised concert series “Country in Hope”.
In 1981, Jill had since been active on stage and on TV. She won several prizes in national voice competitions, and she was invited on tour to many countries in Europe and Asia. She recorded several music tapes as well as theme songs for movies and TV series.
Coming to Delaware in 1992, Jill has continued her professional career with numerous performances on the East Coast. Her music has always been well received and appreciated by her American audience.
 

Qian, Yi 钱熠

Qian, Yi entered the Shanghai Chinese Opera School at the age of 11 and soon became famous for her interpretations of The legend of the White Snake and of scenes from The Peony Pavilion. The Chinese Ministry of Culture has recognized her as the county's finest young actress in the KunJu style. As the star of the Lincoln Center Festival’s historic production of The Peony Pavilion, she has been acclaimed by critics and audiences in America, Europe, and Australia with such superlatives as “radiant” (New York Times), “incomparable” (Wall Street-Journal), and “spellbinding”(New York Magazine).  In addition to giving workshop demonstrations in traditional Chinese performing arts , she has begun to work with Western musicians such as Meredith Monk and she is currently working with director Chen Shi-Zheng on several contemporary productions.
Shanghai Kunju Opera Company 1995-1998
As lead actress, She performed leading roles in traditional Kun operas throughout China and traveling twice to Taiwan. In 1995, she was awarded the title of National Best Young Kunju Actress by the Chinese Minister of Culture.
The Peony Pavilion 1999 – Present
Ms. Qian was cast as Du Liniang , the lead role in director Chen Shi-Zheng’s epic fifty-five scene production of Tang Xianxu’s The Peony Pavilion. The first complete staging of the 20-hour opera in over four hundred years. The opera was produced by The Lincoln Center Festival and Festival d’Automne. It premiered in New York in 1999.
Ye Yan, The Night Banquet 2001-Present
This production of contemporary Chinese composer Guo Wenjing’s The Night Banquet was directed by Chen Shi-Zheng and produced by Festival d’Automne and Lincoln Center Festival.
The Orphan of Zhao 2001- Present
In 2001 Qian Yi made her English language debut in Chen Shi-Zheng’s workshop of Ji Junxiang’s The Orphan of Zhao, produced by Lincoln Center Theatre.
Ghost Lovers 2002
Qian Yi stars as Yan Xijiao in director Chen Shi-Zheng adaptation of this Ming Dynasty Opera. The opera was produced by Lincoln Center Institute to introduce Chinese traditional performing arts. 

Audrey Luna

Audrey Luna’s career in opera, oratorio, lieder, and new music has taken her to festivals, opera houses and concert halls around the world including the Salzburger Festspiel, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiel, Mettlach Chamber Music Festival, Jerusalem Festival, Konzerthaus Wien, Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Queens Hall, the Kennedy Center,  St. John the Divine Cathedral and the Riverside Church, New York City.
She has toured with Helmut Rilling, English Chamber Orchestra, Seville Symphony, the Hagen Quartet, and Percussion Group Cincinnati in Austria, France, Germany, Scotland, England, Spain, Israel, the U.S., and China. Ms. Luna spent several seasons as fest soloist of the Bremen Opera, and sang as well in many opera houses throughout Germany.
Ms. Luna has also worked extensively in contemporary music.  She was invited to sing at the historic opening of the Schoenberg Institute in Vienna, and most recently to premier music of Qu Xiao-song at the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival.   She commissioned the evening-length monodrama CLOTHO for soprano, percussion, and computer, and is currently involved in various performance and recording projects:  in Paris, with Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, with Chinese composers Qu Xiao-song and Chen Yi, John Corigliano, as well as with a number of young American women composers.
Audrey Luna is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Miami University.  Upcoming projects include appearances with New York City Opera’s Showcase of American Composers Series, the Cincinnati Symphony and the premier of Qu’s commissioned opera for the Munich Biennale, recitals with pianist Brad Caldwell and percussionist Allen Otte, recordings of the music for soprano and percussion in Mode Records’ integrated edition of the complete music of John Cage.

Lingling H. Peng, Mezzo-soprano

Lingling Peng had her first public solo at age 10. She received her B.A. in vocal performance from Guangxi Academy of Arts and studied voice in Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. She won numerous awards and competitions at the national and provincial level and has had over one hundred recordings of new compositions on radio stations and TV programs. Notably, she was the soloist of the “Sound of Nationalities” and “The Dewy Rose” in the Spring Festival Program of China Central Television.
As a performer and voice instructor, Lingling was invited to Singapore in 1994. She represented Singapore in the Asia Vocal Competitions held in Hong Kong and Malaysia. In 1997 Lingling won the first prize in the vocal competition organized by the Singapore Composer Circle.
Lingling’s voice has been described as fantastic, rich, and strong, with force and dramatic quality and great acting that impressively connects the voice with the character. Suzuki (Madame Butterfly) is her signature role. Lingling has also portrayed Dorabella (Cosi Fan Tutte) in Roma Festival Opera, Italy, and Gypsy Queen (The Bohemian Girl) in the Ireland Waterford International Light Opera Festival. Her soloist oratorio performances include Verdi’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, among others. Lingling recently sang the roles of Tigrana
in Puccini opera Edgar and Musetta in Leoncavallo, La Boheme with the American Center for Puccini Studies in Washington, DC 2005. Martha is her upcoming role in the opera Iolanta with Bel Cantanti Opera (DC) 2006.
Lingling is a graduate of Peabody Conservatory and received a M.M. in voice from the University of Nebraska. She currently resides in Germantown, MD.

Cao, Zheng 曹铮

Cao, Zheng is a regular guest of leading companies here and abroad.  A personal favorite of Seiji Ozawa, she has appeared with him as Marguerite in a concert presentation of La Damnation de Faust at the Saito Kinen Festival, Mezzo-Soprano Soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for the recent Winter Olympic Games in Japan, and as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly for her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
She began her professional career with the San Francisco Opera as an Adler Fellow and has subsequently performed Idamante in Idomeneo, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffman, Siebel in Faust, and Suzuki, Washington Opera as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Suzuki, Los Angeles Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Penelope in Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria, Opera Pacific as Nicklausse in Les Contes d’ Hoffman, Michigan Opera as Rosina, San Diego Opera as Siebel and Suzuki, Grand Theatre de Geneve as Suzuki,
Upcoming engagements include her debut with Houston Grand Opera later this season as Varvara in Katya Kabanova, Pittsburgh Opera as Sesto in Giulio Cesare .
On the concert stage, she has performed Ravel’s Sheherazade, with the Honolulu Symphony, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the San Francisco Ballet, Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw Philharmonia. She has also appeared in recital at the J.F.K. Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and a Master’s Degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she performed the role of Carmen in Peter Brook’s The Tragedy of Carmen, Amastris in Xerxes and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. She was a 1992 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions finalist and a winner of the 1993 Palm Beach Opera International Vocal Competition.

Qin Xueling  秦雪玲

Considered the perfect Hua Dan on contemporary Beijing Opera stage, Ms. Qin Xueling is a quintessential embodiment of how art can connect with human soul and of how art can influence and inspire people regardless of culture, creed, or color.
Born in 1947, Ms. Qin began her career early. Recognized as a gifted student at age eleven, she was made an exception to be enrolled into the prestigious School of Chinese Traditional Opera in Beijing.  At age twenty-five, she started teaching Hua Dan at the Central Arts Academy.  At age thirty-three, against all odds, she began learning the long lost Beijing Opera technique: walking on Qiao. At age forty, she brought Qiao back on stage—with a breathtaking beauty that both mesmerized her audience and helped revitalize Beijing Opera.
Ms. Qin has accomplished a lot and won numerous times both in China and abroad.  In 1993, Ms. Qin was awarded the Plum Blossom Award—the highest honor accorded to Chinese Opera performers.  A year later, she was given the status of “First Class Performing Artist in China.” In 1989, the Ministry of Social Development in Singapore honored her with an Excellence in Performance Award. In 1998, Cambridge University Press’s The Outstanding People of the 20th Century features her biography. In 1999, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Chinese American Arts Council jointly presented her the Most Outstanding Asian Artist Award.  And this list of honors goes on. 
“Watching Master Qin Xueling perform on Beijing Opera stage almost creates an out-of-body experience”—one speaks volumes for the intense and exhilarating power of her performance.  Ms. Qin has indeed become one of the greatest artists who always are in search of ultimate meanings in art—both in its forms and in its expressions.

Mei Zhong - Soprano

Dr. Mei Zhong, Associate Professor of Voice at Ball State University. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California at Los Angeles, a Bachelor of Arts in Piano from Hunan Teachers University, and a diploma for advanced vocal study from Shanghai Conservatory of Music. As an opera singer and concert soloist, Zhong has toured extensively in both China and the United States. She has performed the lead roles in Madama Butterfly, Suor Angelica, and Carmen for Illinois Opera Theater of UIUC. She appeared in the UCLA production of Dvorak’s Te Deum, conducted by Donald Neuen, as well as in a television production for KSCI in Los Angeles.
An active teacher, singer and scholar, Zhong has given master classes and lecture recitals at institutions and conferences internationally. She has published several articles, books, and recordings. She was featured in a documentary by the Chinese Central Documentary Film Company. She was one of the twelve people awarded a fellowship for studying in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern Program in 2000. In 2002, she was among the five faculty members honored with the Master Teacher award from Idaho State University. In 2007, she was the sole recipient of the Outstanding Creative Endeavor Award, the top honor given to faculty at Ball State University.

Bing Yang - Beijing Opera

Bing Yang, performer at New York Studio of Chinese Theatre Arts. Yang studied at PLA College of the Arts and then joined the Art Ensemble Comrade-In-Arms of Beijing Military Region. She was a member of the art troupe contracted to stage the Peony Pavilion at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2001
杨冰 86年考入辽宁省艺术学校表演系93年毕业. 同年进入北京京剧院 工作. 95年考入中国人民解放军艺术学院. 随后被调入北京战友文工团. 2000年来美. 2001年签约纽约林肯艺术中心<< 牡丹亭>>剧组. 现任纽约中国戏剧工作室演员.

Baogang Liu - percussion

Liu, Baogang, Music Director of New York Studio of Chinese Theatre Arts. Before coming to the States in 1999, Liu was a professor at his Alma Mater, the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts.
刘宝刚 89年毕业于辽宁省艺术学校戏曲音乐系. 94年考入中国戏曲学院毕业后留校任教. 99年来美. 现任纽约中国戏剧工作室音乐总监.