Gao Hong

Gao Hong’s life has been filled with hard work and struggles, but also joy and happiness. Gao’s father was a government official and landowner who had been blacklisted during the Cultural Revolution and sent away, so Gao's mother held the family together as a music teacher. To ease the strain on the family budget, at just 12 years old, Gao left her family in the ancient Chinese capital of Luoyang and moved 400 miles away to Heibei Province to begin her musical career. Aged 22, Gao went on to become a student at China's premier school of music, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied with pipa master Lin Shicheng, and later graduated. Since Gao moved to USA, she has become an award-winning musician. Her 2021 ARC Music release ‘Hunting Eagles Catching Swans’ won two Gold Medals from the Global Music Awards and was Songlines magazine pick for "The Best New Albums from Around the World." She won four more Gold Medals from the Global Music Awards in 2023, for her highly acclaimed album, ‘House of Friendship’, which she recorded with Senegalese kora player Kadialy Kouyate, and for her album ‘Alondra’ with flamenco guitarist Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde. “For over 50 years. Gao Hong’s music has inspired and moved countless numbers of people around the globe. As one of the premiere pipa players in the world, Gao Hong’s illustrative career is filled with accomplishments as a musician, composer and educator.” – Amy Klobuchar, United States Senator.