For Immediate Release
CAMPBELLSVILLE UNIVERSITY TO HOST
CHINESE PIPA PERFORMER, MING KE, FEB. 15
By Joan C. McKinney, news and publications coordinator
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – Chinese internationally-renowed pipa performer, Ming Ke, will be making her third performance in Campbellsville Monday, Feb. 15 for a guest recital at 8 p.m. in Campbellsville University’s The Gheens Recital Hall in the Gosser Fine Arts Center at 210 University Drive, Campbellsville.
Dr. Wesley Roberts, professor of music, said, “Ke has achieved considerable success as a performer on the pipa and will give a solo performance on this lute-like instrument along with the Chinese zhong and ruan.”
Ke, whose appearances in Campbellsville have been sponsored twice by the university and once by the Central Kentucky Arts Series, has also worked with two university chamber ensembles on previous visits.
The program is free and open to the public.
Ke has appeared as a soloist with principal orchestras in China, Japan, Spain and the United States since her formal debut in 1985. Described in the Cincinnati Enquirer as a performer whose “performances sparkle with grace and expression,” Ke is an interpreter of traditional and contemporary music for the pipa, a four-stringed Chinese chordophone whose history dates from ca. 200 B.C.
A native of Nanjing, China, Ke studied at the Fine Arts College in Nanjing, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in pipa performance in 1982. Her professional studies on the pipa were with teachers Wang Fan-Di and Liu De-Hai.
Additional studies were undertaken on the zhong ruan with Wang Zhong-Bing and the Qin with Cheng Gong-Liang. Following graduation from the Nanjing Fine Arts College, she taught aspiring pipa students for ten years at the College while giving solo concerts on the pipa and ruan and orchestral performances with the principal orchestras in Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Hubei, China and Nagoya, Japan.
She has received prizes in several Chinese music festivals and competitions.
Following a brief period in Barcelona, Spain, Ke settled in the United States with her family in 1993. Solo and orchestral appearances soon followed with performances from Arizona to New York in festivals, universities, performing arts centers and Chinese gatherings.
Her appearances in her adopted city of Cincinnati have included numerous solo concerts as well as performances with the Cincinnati Symphony, Pops and Chamber Orchestras under the batons of Erich Kunzel and John Morris Russell, each with resounding success as she performed solo and concerto literature arranged from traditional Chinese music to contemporary concertos.
Roberts said her recordings of traditional music for solo pipa have gained much attention and preserve not only the literature but also her exquisite performances.
Campbellsville University is a private, comprehensive institution located in South Central Kentucky. Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention and has an enrollment of 3,006 students who represent 97 Kentucky counties, 30 states and 37 foreign nations. Listed in U.S.News & World Report’s 2010 “America’s Best Colleges,” CU is ranked 23rd in “Best Baccalaureate Colleges” in the South, tied for fifth in “most international students” and fourth in “up-and-coming” schools in baccalaureate colleges in the South. CU has been ranked 17 consecutive years with U.S.News & World Report. The university has also been named to America’s Best Christian Colleges® and to G.I. Jobs magazine as a Military Friendly School. Campbellsville University is located 82 miles southwest of Lexington, Ky., and 80 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. Dr. Michael V. Carter is in his 11th year as president.