ZHENG Jian is a national A-list conductor. He graduated from Department of Conducting in Central Conservatory of Music. He was conductor at the Song and Dance Troupe of General Political Department and Director of Song and Dance Troupe of the Political Department of the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force. He is also a council member and director of the Chinese Musicians’ Association, director of the China Symphony Development Foundation, Vice Chairman of the China Symphony League, executive director of the China Chorus Association, Vice Chairman of the China Chorus League, Vice President of the Beijing Chorus Association, delegate to the National Party Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and guest professor at the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art. He enjoys special government allowance from the State Council. He won the excellent conductor award at the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th Art Festival of the Whole Army, and the special contribution award at the 9^th and 10^th Art Festival of the Whole Army. He also won the second-class merit and third-class merit for numerous times. Since 1990, he has been serving as the organizer, planner and conductor of the National and Military New Year Gala Evening and other major military performance activities, and met Party and state leaders. He served as a judge in various national competitions, such as the Military Art Award, Vocal Competition, CCTV Young Singers Grand Prix, Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music and China National Arts Fund. In 2004, he attended the 20^th International Friendship Arts Festival with a delegation and won gold award for conducting. He initiated the founding of China People's Armed Police Force Male Chorus.

Over the years, ZHENG Jian has established cooperation with Chinese orchestras, such as the China National Opera House, China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, as well as many provincial symphony orchestras. Besides being guest conductor, he gave a number of choral concerts with the former China National Symphony Orchestra Choir and China Radio Choir.

He has organized, created and orchestrated many choruses; released Voice of Brilliance men’s chorus albums, and won the China Gold Record Award. He participated in planning and conducted NCPA grand song and dance drama Brothers Red Army Are Coming, and conducted NCPA opera Visitors on the Snow Mountain when it toured some cities in Southern China. He also had cooperation with the China NCPA Chorus.

Standing firm under the guidance of XI Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Beijing Male Choir for Principal Artists stands keen to labor for the people and to serve the people with art. Under the leadership of the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Beijing Musicians Association, the Choir implements the mission of holding the banner high, gathering popular support, cultivating new talents and displaying their image. They remain committed to shouldering new responsibilities for consolidating the foundation of the country, making new contributions to cultural inheritance and innovation, and taking on a new look for moral cultivation. With a strong sense of mission, which means a compelling obligation to fulfill heavy duties by giving full play to the talent, the Choir is devoted to promote development of chorus art in China by playing a positive role in prospering the arts market of Beijing and expediting the construction of the capital into a national cultural centre.

The Beijing Male Choir for Principal Artists was founded in July 2019 on the initiative of ZHOU Tao, a well-known concert planner and producer, who is now Managing Director of the Choir. ZHENG Jian, a well-known conductor, is an artistic advisor to the Choir and Chief Conductor of it. Composed of the most outstanding Chinese male choristers, it’s a high-performance male choir that works under high standards of chorus art in an efficient manner. Since its founding, the Choir has organised many outstanding performances including a concert entitled, “You Raise Me Up”, and Sing A Mountain Song for the Party, a red classic presented to mark the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Aspiring to serve as a professional concert hall-based choir, adhering to the tenet of “singing for the people and eulogising the era”, the Choir takes it as their primary mission to support the public good and hold professional concerts. Thus they undertake major social events, give spectacular performances, and get involved in public-spirited cultural exchanges and art education activities.

The Beijing Male Choir for Principal Artists places quality at the core of team development. Exquisite arrangements characterise them. In their repertoire are various genres of songs including Baroque, classical pop, jazz and folk songs and many other types of modern songs. The Choir will also showcase rock songs, hillbilly songs, etc. Their rearrangements and rendition of various Chinese folk songs remain a crucial to the Choir’s repertoire.

The Beijing Male Choir for Principal Artists stands dedicated to captivating the audience with their beautiful voices, consummate singing skills, exquisite harmonies and diversified performances. They are also enthusiastic about endowing choral music with stronger vitality by singing more soul-stirring and touching choral songs. In the future, the Choir will work even harder to promote diversification to build an innovative, fashionable and diversified male chorus, which will emerge as a first-class choir of China to serve society. Meanwhile, the Choir will strive to attract more young people to chorus art so that they may develop a passion for chorus art.

The Beijing Symphony Orchestra was founded in October 1977. In the 1990s, the Beijing Symphony Orchestra underwent a significant reform and reorganization under the leadership of artistic director TAN Lihua. The orchestra has held annual musical events for over ten years, with 90-100 concerts given each year. Starting with the classics, the orchestra has performed nearly 1,000 musical works, including operatic music, symphonic music, chamber music and contemporary music. It has cooperated with world-renowned maestros, instrumentalists and famous international orchestras to expand its repertoire. The Forbidden City Concert Hall, situated in the imperial garden, belongs to the Beijing Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra has worked with many famous orchestras and top musicians, such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; famous virtuosos include maestro Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Christoph Eschenbach, Lawrence Foster, Thomas Sandrine, Andrew Davis, Leif Segerstam and Pavel Kogan; piano virtuosos include Lazar Berman, JustusFrantz , Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Tzimon Barto; violin virtuosos Vadim Repin, Midori Gotō, Lin Cho-Liang, Christophe Barratier and Sergey Krylov; cello virtuosos include Mischa Maisky, Lloyd Webber and Corona Crainey; viola virtuoso Yuri Bashmet; trumpeter Garber Portotzky; singers José Carreras and Jennifer Larmore.

Maestro Eschenbach said, “The Beijing Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra with high professional qualities. Their extremely strong musical apprehensiveness and performance style have impressed me deeply." Over the past decades, Beijing Symphony Orchestra made many achievements, one of which is its first international commercial tour in 2001. By far, the orchestra has given commercial performances worldwide for years.

The Beijing Symphony Orchestra shows special preference to contemporary Chinese music compositions. It has planned, participated in, commissioned and premiered new works by most of the contemporary Chinese composers, and it has premiered nearly 200 works. Since 2007, the orchestra has released eight record albums globally with EMI Records, a world-famous music label founded over a century ago.

The Beijing Symphony Orchestra has taken part in many large-scale international cultural exchange activities, and made several visits to Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Czech, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Turkey, Slovenia, Serbia, South Korea, the USA, Canada and Montenegro. In 2001-2017, the orchestra toured Europe for eight times and won high praise from the European critics. In 2013, the orchestra made its debut in America during a two-week tour to Mexico and the USA. The Washington Post gave it a banner headline: “The Beijing Symphony Orchestra starts an Upsurge of Classical.” In February 2017, the orchestra gave a classic symphony concert at the Kennedy Center, receiving high acclaim from the audiences. It gave virtuoso performances at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto and National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada, kicking off celebrations for the 150^th anniversary of the founding of Canada. The joint performance given by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra was the first one to be given by the three orchestras together after the founding of Canada, which is of great historical significance. In September the same year, Beijing held the second 16+1 Summit of China and CEE Capitals Mayors in Podgorica, Montenegro as well as the “Beijing Day” Event in Belgrade, Serbia. Deputy Party Secretary and Acting Mayor of Beijing CHEN Jining attended the activities with a government delegation. The Beijing Symphony Orchestra gave a symphony concert under the theme, “Tour of Friendship” at the Podgorica National Theatre and Belgrade Sava Central Theatre respectively. The orchestra signed a memorandum of understanding with the Montenegro Symphony Orchestra and Serbia Belgrade Symphony Orchestra, entering into a specified relationship with them. Also, a symphony orchestra league was formed by Beijing with its international sister cities, enriching the connotations of the second 16+1 Summit of China and CEE Capitals Mayors and “Beijing Day” Event in Belgrade, Serbia, and achieving substantial results in cooperation.

In 1994, the Beijing Symphony Orchestra started devoting itself to popularizing symphonic music on a large scale in military camps, factories and mines, schools and communities in Beijing as well as Chinese concert halls and institutions of higher education. Over the past 20 years, the orchestra has held nearly 1,000 concerts for symphony popularization for millions of spectators of different professions and ages in school canteens and halls, factories and communities, as well as at opera houses and concert halls in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities. In the 2014 season, it gave the opening concert on campus. In 2016, it initiated an activity titled, “Capital Civic Hall” and performed “symphonic music for common people”, introducing classical music into capital citizens’ daily life.

As the 2019 season is now on, all members of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra are writing a more brilliant artistic chapter with full passion in high spirits.