Professor Wang Cizhao is President of the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. He graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in 1983 and became a faculty member in the same year. He was appointed Deputy Director of the Musicology Department in 1990. He became Vice President of the Central Conservatory of Music in 1992 and President in 1998.

Professor Wang is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He serves on various committees and associations and is Vice-chairman of the Chinese Musicians’ Association, Chairman of the Chinese Music Critics’ Society. He is Director of the National Supervision Committee of Specialised Courses in Universities of Fine Arts in China and Chairman of the Digital Music Education Association of China.

He has written seven books, including Fundamentals of Music Aesthetics and New Music Aesthetics. His lecture Fundamental Problems of Music Aesthetics was selected as one of the National Best Courses by the Ministry of Education in 2005. He has received many awards, including in 1998 the National Award to Young Specialists for Outstanding Contributions and in 2002 the Award for Outstanding Literary and Art Workers by the Beijing Municipal Government and in 2007 the Sanford Medal by Yale University.

As the President of Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, he has links with many music universities and academies abroad, including the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, der Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Juilliard School in New York, Yale University, the Royal Academy of Music in London, Le Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, Geijutsu Daigaku in Tokyo, and other major institutions in Asia - in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. He has been External Examiner for the School of Music of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and, with the Shanghai Conservatory and the Hong Kong Academy, is currently involved with all three Schools in bringing together in Hong Kong during June 2007 the international collaborative masterclass series with the Juilliard School of Music.