Gao Hong, a Chinese pipa player and composer, began her career as a professional musician at age twelve. She graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied with pipa master Lin Shicheng. She has received numerous awards and honors. In 2019, Gao Hong became the only musician in any genre to win five McKnight Artist Fellowships for Performing Musicians. In 2018, she became the first Chinese musician to win a Sally Award from the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. She has performed throughout Europe, Australia, Argentina, Japan, Hong Kong, China, and the United States, and has world premiered numerous pipa concerti with important orchestras. She has been featured as both pipa player and composer in important festivals in the U.S. Her composition for solo pipa, “Flying Dragon,” won the 2012 Global Music Award of Excellence-Solo Instrumental (Gold Medal). Since her arrival in the U.S. in 1994, Gao Hong has presented hundreds of educational workshops for elementary through college-age students and has been on the faculty of Metropolitan State University and MacPhail Center for the Arts. Currently, she teaches at Carleton College in Minnesota. During the COVID pandemic, Gao Hong released two CDs, Hunting Eagles Catching Swans (Chinese Pudong pipa music featuring Gao Hong and her master, Lin Shichen) and From Our World to Yours (ARC Music in U.K.).
Interviewed by Raquel Paraíso, 10/21/2020.