Professor Zheng Xiaoying was awarded the First Prize for national conductors by China's Ministry of Culture , won the title of about "Outstanding Woman" four times, won the title of "Advanced Woman Worker" in China , received the Honorable Medal of French Literature and Art , and has been commended by the state many times.
Zheng has been invited to perform more than 1000 opera performances and symphonic concerts, such as "Traviata", "Flower Protecting God", Madame Butterfly" and "Carmen", and to be a guest professor in Russia, Japan, Australia, USA, Italy, Finland, Singapore, France, Holland, Germany, UK, Sweden, Estonia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Macao. Western news media have called her "The Best Woman Conductor in the World".
Before assuming responsibility as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra, Zheng was Principal Conductor of China's Central Opera Theater and Dean of the Department of Conducting of China's Central Conservatory of Music. She was the founder and music director of "Ai Yue Nu", the Women's Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, which was expanded into the first women's symphony orchestra in China and performed for the opening of the United Nations Fourth World on Women in 1955.
In 1962, she became the first Chinese conductor to take the podium in a foreign opera theatre and led her first opera, "Tosca", in the Moscow National Theatre.
In the 1980s, she worked as the Chief Conductor of China's Central Opera Theatre and became a member of the Executive Council of the Chinese Musicians Association.
In the 1990s, she established the "Ai Yue Nu", the Women's Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, aiming at popularizing classical and modern music culture, and in 1995, founded the first women's symphony orchestra in China, which performed at the United Nation's Fourth World Conference on Women. She frequently has participated in important national activities as conductor for music programs, and has led more than one thousand opera and symphony concerts.
Zheng's characteristic style brims with deep, overflowing emotion. Her interpretations are rigorous and precise, yet unrestrained, passionate and exquisite, with strong artistic appeal. She is not only one of the most famous Chinese conducting professors , but also a warm-hearted music society activist. In her concerts, she plays the roles of both conductor and professor by introduce classical and modern music knowledge in different ways to the audiences, which by now have reached hundreds of thousands.
In 1997, Zheng Xiaoying was invited to found the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra with responsibility as its Artistic Director and Chief Conductor. Now the orchestra has more than sixty performers who come from all over China. She has conducted nearby two hundred times with this orchestra, and received great acclaim when she planned the programs about Fujian Province and Xiamen, with the new symphonic poem called "Echoes from the Earth Buildings".
