Guangren Zhou
was born in Hannover ( Germany) of Chinese parents. Her music education started
in Shanghai at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1942. Among her teachers were Ding
Shande, Yang Jiaren. Mario Paci (Italian). Alfred Marcus (Austrian) and Bela
Belai (Hungarian), and Aram Talulian from Moscow.
Her career as
a concert pianist started in the 1940s, when she was invited to perform with
the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra and later with the Central Philharmonic
Orchestra in Beijing, playing Mozart, Chopin and Schumann concert. In 1951 to
1952 she toured Eastern European countries with the China Youth Ensemble. She
was prize-winner during the III World Youth & Students Peace Festival in
East Berlin, 1951 and also prize-winner of the I Schumann International Piano
Competition in East Germany , 1956. She was engaged as soloist at the Central
Philharmonic Orchestra until 1955, before she became piano professor at the
Central conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she is on the faculty until now
and was Chairman of the Piano Department. In 1980, she visited 29 Universities
in the United States of America giving lectures and recitals. In the 1990s, she
has performed and lectured in -Mannheim, Hannover and London and often gives
concerts and master-classes in Mainland China and Hong Kong.
Since 1980,
she has been a frequently sought after adjudicator in major international piano
competitions, such as the Van Cliburn in Fort worth, TX, the Gina Bachauer in
Salt Lake City, UT the Leeds in England, the Marguerite Long in Paris, the
Tchaikovsky Junior in Sendai, Japan, the Rubinstein in Tel-Aviv, the Hamamatsu
in Japan and the Dr. Sigall in Vina Del Mar Chile, and the Princess Sonja in
Oslo, Norway etc. She was Chairman of the Jury during the I and II China
International Piano Competition in 1994 and 1999.
She has
devoted herself extensively to the popularization of the piano in China. During
1983-1993, she established two Children's Piano School. She is organizing
national and international piano competitions, grade examinations and regular
week-end concerts for students and music-lovers for the Beijing Concert Hall
and on television. Besides all these, she is the Chief-editor of the piano
magazine "Piano Artistry". For her contributions, she has been
awarded the 1994 May-First Labout Medal and the 1998 "Baogang Excellent
Teacher's Prize". In 2000, she got the "Senior Professor's Award for
Achievements in Science and Education.