Overview
Biography
Founded in 1950, the Central Conservatory of Music is located at the former Prince Chun's Residence of Qing Dynasty and merged together with the National Conservatory of Music, the Peking National School of Fine Arts and other 6 departments of music in Universities from 1920s to 1940s in China. Music Department of the Yenching University ( 1927), the Music Department of the Literature and Art School of the North China University (1939), the National Academy of Music in Nanjing (1940), the Music Department of the National Peiping School of Arts (1946), and the Music Department of the Northeast Lu Hsun Institute of Literature and Art. Moved from Tianjin to Beijing in 1958, it was ranked among the national leading universities in 1960. Currently, it was listed as one of the leading universities in the "211 project" in 2000, the only institution in Academies of Fine Arts in China, and only key institution of higher learning supervised directly under the Ministry of Education of the State Council among all academies of arts in China. The ex-presidents have included Ma Sicong, Zhao Feng, Wu Zuqiang, and Liu Lin. Professor Wang Cizhao is the current president.
As an institution of single discipline for training high level musical specialists in higher learning, the Central Conservatory of Music has evolved a complete system of pedagogy embracing courses of all levels starting from elementary classes up to postgraduate programs for master and doctoral degrees. The Conservatory has departments of composition, conducting, musicology, music education, voice and opera, piano, orchestral instruments, and traditional Chinese instruments, academic study, offering undergraduate programs of study for a period of 4 to 5 years and postgraduate program for 2 or 3 years. The attached institutions also include a six-year middle school and a three-year primary school, giving courses in piano, orchestral instruments, traditional Chinese instruments and music theory. The Music Research Institute is the Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education. The Orchestra Academy was established in 2005 for training orchestral musicians and offering postgraduate program, the first of its kind in Asia. The Journal of the Central Conservatory of Music, a quarterly published by the Conservatory, is widely distributed at home and abroad. The post-doctoral station has also been set up recently. The Institute of Violin Making, Modern Electro-acoustic Music Centre, Voice Research Centre, Music Therapy Center, College of Continuing Education Music, Education Center of Distance Learning and Division of Social Education of Music are designated to conduct interdisciplinary researches for the aim of enriching the programs.
Having served for the past 55 years both as a music education center for training professional musicians and a research-composition-performance center for developing music education of society, the CCOM has grown into an institution of high prestige at home and abroad capable of offering the whole range of curricula for musical training, and representing the level of music education in China.
The current enrolled students number nearly 1,660 and the teaching and administrative staffs total about 700. Professors and associate professors make up two third of the faculty. Over 3,000 students have graduated from the Conservatory. Many of the graduates are now the musical directors, concertmasters of the symphony orchestras, the core members of music schools, artistic organizations, and research institutes in all parts of China and world, and some of them have been ranked among the eminent Chinese musicians and won the international fames.
The Conservatory Campus occupies 5.3 hectors of land with a complex of old and new buildings covering an area of nearly 60,000 square meters. The conservatory Music Library housing over 500,000 volumes is the largest of the kind in this country. The Conservatory owns over 500 pianos and a large number of other musical I instruments; its educational facilities include an electronic music studio with advanced recording and video equipments, and a violin workshop.
The Central Conservatory of Music is a holy palace for many musical talents in the country. For past 55 years, thousands of students have graduated from the Conservatory, some of them have established the international reputation. The students have won 481 prizes in major international music competitions, including the golden and silver medals in Tchaikovsky International Music Competition, 1801 prizes in national music competitions, 346 music compositions have been awarded in international and national competition. From 1987, 87 prizes for scientific achievements have been given to the CCOM.
CCOM has intensified has intensified the international exchanges with other countries and established regular intercollegiate exchange or collaboration with many international major institutions of music for past 55 years with foreign countries for cultural exchange by inviting foreign eminent musicians and scholars to teach or give lectures at the institution and by sending its own faculty members and students in a planned manner to other countries for pursuing further studies, giving lectures and performances. A Number of international students from different countries studied in the Central Conservatory of Music, including students from Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Algeria, Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and other countries.
The China Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Chinese Traditional Musical Instruments Ensemble, the Conservatory Students Choir, the Middle school Students Orchestra and the Primary School Students Performing Group, all composed of the conservatory's students and teachers, have visited many countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa, and their performances were received with wide appreciation.
