Jingshu Zhao
one of a number of outstanding young pianists to emerge from China, was born in 1991 in Wuhan. Her talent first became evident when she started to play the piano at the age of three. She graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Keng Zhou and Baili Fang, and then continued working for her Masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Jon Nakamatsu and Mack McCray, and for her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance with Joseph Banowetz at the University of North Texas. As a concert pianist, she has performed extensively in both the People’s Republic of China and the United States. In addition, in 2010–11 she won a number of prizes in national competitions in China: the Four Hands Group Gold Award in the Helen Cup Piano Competition (Shanghai, 2010), the Outstanding Performance Award and Perth Performance Pianist in the solo group of the Chang Jiang Cup piano competition (Shanghai, 2010), silver medal in the second Deutscher Irmler-Klavierwettbewerb (Shanghai, 2011) and first prize in the piano four-hands group of the Shanghai Division of the Chang Jiang Piano Cup national college piano competition (Shanghai, 2011). She was invited to record for Baili Fang’s instructional DVD series on the Bach Inventions, published by the Shanghai Conservatory Press (2011).