Zheng Xiaoying

Zheng Xiaoying (; born 28 September 1929) is a Chinese conductor and was the first female conductor in China. Zheng was the chief conductor of the China National Opera House (CNOH) and she formed and conducted the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra. She was formerly the director of the Conducting Department of the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing.

Biography Zheng was born in Yongding District, Longyan, Fujian province in 1929. Zheng is of Hakka descent and felt that her family valued education. Zheng took part in the Chinese Communist Revolution, where her job was to train a large song and dance troupe and conduct Chinese operas. She was working in Henan province. In 1955, she was sent on a course taught by Soviet conductors where she was the only woman in the class. She taught at the CCOM between 1956 and 1960. After Moscow, she returned to CCOM and taught until the Cultural Revolution interrupted her work. She was involved in the "influential performances" of The God of Flowers, La Traviata, Carmen, Le Nozze di Figaro and Madam Butterfly. The group plays both Western and Chinese music. Zheng and the women's orchestra performed at the Fourth World Conference on Women. In 1998, she started the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra (XPO), a non-State musical ensemble. Zheng was a torchbearer in Xiamen for the 2008 Olympic Games. In 2011, she was honored with the Golden Melody Prize from the Chinese Musicians' Association. She retired from the XPO in 2013.

She is the mother of Zheng Su, who is one of the few ethnomusicologists from China teaching in America, and she is a grandmother to Aimee Zheng.