Ling Peng

The story behind the sound

One of the world’s leading erhu soloists, music has been Ling Peng’s life for as long as she can remember. A child prodigy, by the age of seven she was performing before thousands during China’s Cultural Revolution, later becoming the youngest ever erhu scholar at the prestigious Sichuan Conservatory of Music. After studying at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, Ling moved to the UK in 1990 where she has performed extensively with the London Chinese Orchestra, and in Europe with the Luxembourg Sinfonietta. Ling continues to preserve traditional Chinese folk music via her ensemble Chinese Whispers, and through her extensive work as a cultural ambassador in schools and with regional arts organisations, leading to recognition from the Arts Council England. In addition to collaborating with musicians across a vast array of genres, Ling works with performance artists, theatre designers and playwrights to fuse Western artforms with Chinese music. In doing so, she brings new perspectives, new audiences and new understandings to Chinese culture.