President and Artistic Director of the China National Opera House, artistic director of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra and dean of the Conducting Department of the China Central Conservatory of Music (CCCM).

Having begun studying music at a very young age, YU Feng enrolled at the Conducting Department of the China Central Conservatory of Music in 1985. Six years later, he graduated with a Master's Degree and kicked off his teaching career in the same department. The same year, he became the first Chinese winner of the International Young Conductors' Competition held in Portugal, prompting national media to hail him as a "genius" and call it a "victory for the east".

In 1994, YU was awarded the gold medal for teaching excellence by the State Education Council's Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation. He then moved overseas to study at the Berlin Conservatory of Music and secured his PhD in conducting in 1996. Back in China, he took up the position of dean of the CCCM's conducting department, a post he still holds, and won a government subsidy from the State Council reserved for "experts who had made extraordinary contributions". In 2001, YU was given the honorary title of "national teacher of model professional ethics".

YU Feng's gracious conducting style and insightful interpretations of music have won him international recognition among audiences and musicians worldwide. He has been invited to collaborate with a host of international symphony orchestras including the New Portugal National Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Berlin and the Neapolis Symphony Orchestra in Italy. In recent years, the China National Opera House and the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra have made considerable progress under his leadership.

YU's professional teaching has given rise to a raft of talented young musicians, conductors and instrumentalists. He has been invited to give lectures in the countries and regions including USA, Japan, Australia and China Hong Kong.

Founded in December 2015, the Ningbo Symphony Orchestra is a public institution directly under the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, and an advanced collective in the national culture and tourism system. YU Feng, President of the Central Conservatory of Music and a famous conductor, is the artistic director and chief conductor of the orchestra.

The personnel mechanism is innovated to recruit persons of virtue and ability. Since its establishment, the orchestra remains committed to boldly innovating its personnel mechanism and creating a good professional atmosphere by taking advantage of Ningbo as an international port city and aiming to become a “domestic first-class and world-renowned” ensemble, attracting more than 90 outstanding performers with academic degrees from world-famous schools of music. Over the past six years, this young orchestra has collaborated with numerous well-known Chinese and foreign musicians including famous Chinese conductors YU Feng, LI Xincao, LÜ Jia, ZHANG Guoyong, TAN Lihua, XU Zhong, YANG Yang, LIN Daye, CHEN Lin, and YU Lu, American conductor Leon Botstein, German conductor Vladimir Yaskorski, Russian conductor Alexander Vitlin, violinist NING Feng, cellist QIN Liwei, famous pianists YIN Chengzong and CHEN Sa, etc., with its professional level rapidly improved.

Art is placed above everything else in a standard and rigorous atmosphere. In 2017, the Ningbo Symphony Orchestra launched its first music season and staged a series of works by Mahler, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, as well as other composers at its solo concerts, winning high praise from audiences. In 2020, the orchestra spent five days challenging nine Beethoven symphonies, becoming the first Asian orchestra to do so, with its performance live-streamed on the well-known Chinese barrage video website bilibili. Carmen, a full-length opera co-produced by the orchestra and the Taiwan Creation Opera Institute, was staged during its performing tour, receiving an enthusiastic reaction from audiences. Deer’s Call, a national opera co-produced by the orchestra and the Ningbo Performance & Arts Group, has won the National “Five-One” Project Award.

The brand stands out conspicuously with an aggressive mind. The orchestra has attended many national cultural performances including the Celebration Gala held on Tiananmen Square to mark the 70^th National Day, the opening ceremony of the 15^th Asia Arts Festival, the opening ceremony of the First Beijing International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition for Young Pianists, the opening ceremony of the “Cultural City of East Asia - Ningbo” Activity Year 2016, the International Vocal Competition 2018, Yan’an “May 23^rd” and “October 15^th” Art Festivals, and the opening ceremony of the China-CEEC Investment and Trade Expo. It has given performances for cultural exchanges in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and South Korea, winning wide acclaim, with its popularity, influence and reputation significantly improved. In 2021, the orchestra gave a performance at the NCPA, Beijing, and also toured other major Chinese cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xi’an, and Harbin, further demonstrating the charm and elegance of Ningbo’s urban culture.

Art popularisation benefits the whole nation. With a creative idea of popularising elegant art education, the orchestra offers an open master class themed, “Moral Education for Virtue Cultivation and Art Education for Enlightenment” in summer, gives lectures on music appreciation, and displays elegant art on campus, etc. so that symphonic music can enter the daily life of common people. The Master Class, themed “Moral Education for Virtue Cultivation and Art Education for Enlightenment”, is a brand created in 2017 for elegant art popularisation. In 2018, its full-length video was uploaded onto the official website of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, becoming a model for Chinese aesthetic education; in 2019, the entire teaching process was recorded by CCTV Open Music Class and shown on CCTV; in 2020, it was broadcast on CCTV as the “first lesson of music in the new semester”, and on leading media run by the central government including xuexi.cn, the Xinhua News Agency, and People’s Daily App. The Master Class themed “Moral Education for Virtue Cultivation and Art Education for Enlightenment” has stepped out of Ningbo into the whole country, becoming a brand of art education on CCTV.

With a new operation philosophy, rigorous artistic pursuit and fruitful artistic achievements, the Ningbo Symphony Orchestra is growing into a beautiful “golden name card” of Ningbo City.

The Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra, affiliated with the Central Conservatory of Music, is an international professional symphony orchestra, with Professor YU Feng, a well-known conductor and President of the Central Conservatory of Music, as its artistic director. All orchestra members are outstanding professional performers from at home and abroad. It took years to scout for each of them on a global scale and all of them passed a strict test before joining. They have consummate performing skills, and devote themselves to intricately interpreting classical works composed in China or elsewhere, in modern or ancient times, with a great passion and conscientious attitude. They bear the responsibility to cultivate personnel, create and perform works, engage in international communication, attend music festivals and competitions held both at home and broad, etc. in order to achieve the goal of building a “double first-class” university and respond to the state’s call for promoting artistic development and training top-notch musical talents.

As an international professional symphony orchestra, it stays true to its original aspirations and strives forward with firm determination to spread the sounds of modern, international and future music, with the Chinese culture at the centre and contemporary Chinese reality in view. After its establishment, the orchestra has delivered hundreds of concerts. It is worth mentioning that the inauguration ceremony of the “Belt and Road” Music Education Alliance was held at the Central Conservatory of Music in 2017, and President YU Feng, Artistic Director of the orchestra, conducted the classical work Scheherazade at the opening concert for guests from all over the world. At the end of that year, he covered the dome of the NCPA with the beautiful sounds of Scheherazade and the contemporary Chinese work Eight-Note Ensemble: Echo from the Silk Road. The live recording of the masterpiece Scheherazade won the Best Instrumental Performance Award at the Tenth “China Gold Record Awards”.

In mid-October 2018, the Italian opera Turandot was presented on the live-action stage in the Palace Courtyard, an ancient building in the Central Conservatory of Music, under the creative direction and leadership of YU Feng. In the context of the Palace Hall, the performance attracted many viewers from at home and abroad, becoming a massive hit, winning high praise from the leaders of relevant government departments, foreign embassies and cultural counsellors, and amazing both domestic and international music scenes.

The orchestra has given performances in cooperation with dozens of world-famous instrumentalists and singers at music festivals and special concerts held all over the world.

At the beginning and end of 2018, “Contemporary Chinese Music: World Premiere Concert of New Works by Composers at the Central Conservatory of Music” was held at the Lincoln Center, New York, receiving high accolades from the global mainstream music market. In December 2019, the orchestra was invited to Carnegie Hall, New York to give a concert of new works, once again producing excellent Chinese cultural and musical works heard throughout the American continent.

At the Celebration Party for the 70^th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China held on October 1st, 2019, the orchestra appeared in the Tiananmen Square at the invitation of the National Day Headquarters as a major player among the “thousand-person symphony orchestras”. This reflects the relevant government departments’ high attention and great expectations for the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra also demonstrated its strength and artistic features to the world.

As the only professional symphony orchestra in the field of higher education, the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra actively responds to the Ministry of Education’s call for “elegant art into the campus”. Under the theme of “Approaching Masters, Appreciating Classics, Cultivating Sentiments and Improving Self-cultivation”, it has given content-rich symphony concerts in dozens of colleges and universities across China to popularise quality education in musical culture, gaining admiration from hundreds of thousands of teachers and students.

With every one of its concerts attracting much attention from insiders, the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra has become the most influential symphony orchestra in the country. Through its high-quality performances and brilliant achievements, the orchestra shows its distinctive charm as an international symphony orchestra and its leadership in domestic symphony performance to music lovers from both at home and abroad.

Founded in early May 2018, the Central Conservatory of Music Choir is affiliated with the Central Conservatory of Music. As one of the backbone forces of artistic productions at China’s No.1 conservatory of music, the team, which stands committed to “raising the national artistic level and training top-notch musical talents”, participates in various cultural exchange activities.

Since its establishment, the Choir has been cooperating with many well-known orchestras and performing artists. So far, it has given more than 60 performances in various forms including opera, special concert, music festival, musical Party class, national celebration and important work recordings. Its main performance achievements include Turandot and dozens of concerts themed by “Belt and Road”, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 Ode to Joy, which was performed when the “Alumni Association for Musicians in Germany” was founded, Yan’an 5.23/10.15 Musical Festival, Yellow River Cantata, “A Thousand People in Chorus” on Tiananmen Square, large-scale concert of symphonic chorus Marching to the New Era, musical Party class, the premiere of song and dance drama Thousand-year Song of Ningbo, the Auspicious Motherland concert and New Year’s concert held in many places, the songs in the Ningbo City Promo, and the recording of red classic choruses for Xuexi.cn. After COVID-19 broke out, the team launched new works for fighting the epidemic including We, Angels Tell You, etc. Then, they took an active part in the “High Participation” online music course project and offered about 20 online lessons. After its establishment, the team has received unanimous praise from people of all walks of life with its vigorous and precise work style and superb professional ability. It is honoured as “a new-generation group with outstanding performance and great potential”.