The San Francisco Guzheng Music Society will hold its 29th annual concert, The Sound of Zheng on May 1. The featured performer will be an exciting young award-winning guzheng artist from Shanghai who has been impressing audiences around the world since he began playing. The guzheng is a centuries-old Chinese zither instrument.

The concert at the Chinese Culture Center will feature Shanghai’s young guzheng virtuoso Liu Le, presenting the United States premiere of four new guzheng music pieces. Two of these pieces, the “Sleeve Dance Fantasies” and “Guang Ying Ru Ge” are composed or arranged by Le. Shanghai composer Li Lei and American Chinese composer Shen Yiwen composed the other pieces, “Ballad of the Enchanting Lotus” and “Sacrificial Offering,” especially for Le.

A graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Le studied under famous Chinese music Professor Wang Wei. As the only male Chinese top national awards winner in the past 15 years, he has become one of the top experts and most popular players of the guzheng in China, winning many additional awards and honors.

Le has performed concertos with many leading orchestras in China and Europe including the French Radio Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Germany’s Rundfunk-Orchestra Berlin, and the Shanghai Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed in international music festivals such as the Great Lakes Art Festival, Shanghai Jazz Festival, Hong Kong International Art Festival, the Beijing International Music Festival, and more.

In the past four years, Le has world-premiered more than 10 solo pieces and 4 symphony concertos, recorded three albums and several singles, and held more than 20 solo concerts. Numerous TV programs, newspapers, and magazines have interviewed him and reported about his amazing career; one of those papers, the XinMin Evening News in Shanghai, called him “the talented ’80’s representative personage of Chinese traditional musicians.”

The Sound of Zheng featuring Liu Le: Chinese Culture Center, 750 Kearny Street (near Washington), May 1, 3 p.m. Tickets $25–$50 (discount available for San Francisco Guzheng Music Society members) at (415) 668-8111.