Honggang Li is a founding member of the Shanghai Quartet, which is now in its 42nd
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
taught viola at Bard Conservatory and served as Artist-in-Residence at the Montclair State
University for two decades, He also is a resident faculty member at the recently opened
Tianjin Juilliard School. He has been a guest professor of both the Shanghai and
Beijing’s Central Conservatory for the last 25 years. Mr. Li has also been the guest
principal violist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2009. In multiple occasions,
he served as a jury member in international string quartet and chamber music
competitions.