About Honggang Li
Honggang Li is a founding member of the Shanghai Quartet, which is now in its 38th season and has performed nearly 3,000 concerts in 35 countries and recorded over 30 albums.
Mr. Li began studying the violin with his parents at age seven. When the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing reopened in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Li was selected to attend from a group of over five hundred applicants. Among his teachers were Li-Na Yu and Shmuel Ashkenasi.
He co-founded the Shanghai Quartet with his brother while studying at the Shanghai Conservatory. The ensemble soon became the first Chinese quartet to win a major international chamber music competition (the London International). Mr. Li received a master’s degree from North Illinois University and served as a teaching assistant at The Juilliard School in New York. In 1987, he won the special prize (a 1757 DeCable violin) given by Elisa Pegreffi of the Quartetto Italiano at the First Paolo Borciani International Quartet Competition in Italy.
Mr. Li started his teaching career at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1984. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence and faculty member at the Montclair State University. He also is a resident faculty member at the recently opened Tianjin Juilliard School and viola professor at the Bard Conservatory. He has been a guest professor of both the Shanghai and Beijing’s Central Conservatory for the past two decades. Mr. Li has also been the guest principal violist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2009.