内页

Leadership

Liu Yunzhi

Zhang Xuxia

Yao Hong

Zhang Baicheng

Wu Zhao

Liu Yunzhi, President and Artistic Director

Liu Yunzhi, famous violinist, member of the Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee under the National People's Congress, and former principal of the China National Symphony Orchestra. He is currently the president and artistic director of the China National Opera House, and the president of the Chinese Musicians Association String Society.

Liu Yunzhi,born into a family of musicians, Liu Yunzhi started to learn the violin with his father at a very young age. He was admitted to Jilin University of Arts in 1981 and joint the former Central Philharmonic Orchestra in 1985 after graduation. In the end of 1991, he became the orchestra’s concertmaster. From February to September 2000, he was sent by the government to University of Music and Performing Arts Munich in Germany for further study and graduated with distinction. 

As a noted violinist, Liu Yunzhi has long been active in music circles both at home and abroad, travelling with China National Opera House to different places in Europe, Americas, Asia, etc. for tour performances. His impressive performances together with Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and other world-renowned conductors made them repeatedly marvel at China having such a talented concertmaster, one of the world’s top. With prominent talent, Liu Yunzhi has gained international prestige for China in symphony.

In 2000, Liu Yunzhi was sent by the government to University of Music and Performing Arts for Munich further study. In his graduate certificate, he was complimented as “a person of special talent, with brilliant understanding and skills, who would play an active and important role in any orchestra he joins”.

In 2006, China National Symphony Orchestra made a great coup in the tour performance in the U.S. Liu Yunzhi’s solo of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade won him tremendous acclaim. Maurice Peress, an esteemed American conductor, commented that “I was especially impressed by the aristocratic solo violin playing of the concertmaster Liu Yunzhi.” And Bernard Holland, a distinguished American music critic, wrote in The New York Times that “with equally first-rate solos from the orchestra’s soloist and concertmaster Liu Yunzhi”.

Liu Yunzhi is not only an excellent orchestra principal, but also a solo violinist.

In China, he plays violin concerto with many domestic symphony orchestras every year, and tours Europe with the China National Symphony Orchestra, and his violin concerto "The Butterfly Lovers" enjoys warm welcome.

Liu Yunzhi has also recorded and published works such as Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, etc., and his album "Violin Treasures. The Butterfly Lovers" Won the 2005-2007 China Gold Disc Award - Instrumental Performance. 

In 2003, the Stradivari Society offered Liu Yunzhi the use of an Amati violin worth one million U.S. dollars, in recognition of his exceptionally outstanding performance in Chinese and the world’s music circles, making him the first concertmaster to be offered the use of a most precious antique violin by this society. In 2004, Liu Yunzhi was granted a “Ruby” violin worth six million U.S. dollars with which he recorded his violin album Violin Treasures – Butterfly Lovers.

From March 2016 to September 2018, Liu Yunzhi served as vice president of the China National Opera House with a focus on operation; From September 2018 to July 2020, he served as the president of the China National Opera House in charge of art production of the theater.

From July 2020 to now, President Liu Yunzhi has presided over the full operation.

At the beginning of 2020, Liu Yunzhi created the semi-opera "A Sunny Day" in an innovative form with string quintet accompaniment, which was launched as a semi-opera movie on the Cloud, and was followed with interest by the grand public.