Shanghai Conservatory of Music

Shanghai Conservatory of Music is a founder and incubator of modern professional music education in China. As an outstanding representative of Chinese music education, it enjoys a strong reputation in China and abroad and is known as the “cradle of musicians.” Its predecessor, the National Conservatory of Music, was founded in Shanghai on November 27, 1927, by Cai Yuanpei and Xiao Youmei, with Cai Yuanpei as its first president. It was China’s first independently established national higher education institution of music. Its educational philosophy of drawing on Western learning to establish Chinese music education and adapting it into an integrated system laid the foundations of China’s professional music education structure and disciplines. It is now jointly supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Shanghai Municipality. It was selected for the first and new rounds of the national Double First-Class initiative in 2017 and 2022, and twice for Shanghai’s high-level local university development initiative in 2018 and 2022. Its current Party Committee Secretary is Pei Xiaoqian, and its President is Liao Changyong.

It has 15 teaching units: composition and conducting, musicology, orchestral instruments, voice and opera, piano, Chinese traditional music, music education, music engineering, arts administration, modern instruments and percussion, musical theatre, the School of Digital Media Arts, School of Marxism, Department of General Education, and affiliated secondary and primary schools. It has a complete disciplinary system and was the first specialist music conservatory in China authorized to award doctorates in the 3 first-level disciplines of music and dance studies, art theory, and drama and film studies. It has formed a comprehensive music discipline system driven by four areas: music composition, performance, theory and application. Music and dance studies is a Ministry of Education A+ discipline and has ranked first in ShanghaiRanking’s Best Chinese Subjects for three consecutive years. Its educational levels include undergraduate and postgraduate study at master’s and doctoral levels. It has two postdoctoral research stations and affiliated secondary and primary schools, creating an integrated system of artistic talent development across university, secondary and primary education with Chinese characteristics.