Former State Conservatory Junior Program Student, Prominent Chinese Cellist Sheng Mingyao Dies

Sheng Mingyao （盛明耀）, prominent Chinese cellist, former Principal Cello of the China Central Philharmonic Society (today’s China National Symphony Orchestra), a former student of the State Conservatory Junior Program, dies from complications of Parkinson’s Disease, in a hospital in Markham, Ontario, Canada, on September 18, 2023. He was 89 years old.

Born in Nanjing, China in 1933, Sheng Mingyao was orphaned during WWII. In 1945, Sheng Mingyao (along with his brother Sheng Mingliang) was accepted by the State Conservatory of Music Junior Program （国立音乐院幼年班）in Chongqing. He was assigned to major in cello. As the junior program was relocated to Changzhou, he started to study cello under Igor Shevtsov, then Principal Cello of the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra （工部局交响乐团）, until Shevtsov and other foreign instructors had to leave the program in 1947 due to intensifying civil war. In 1950, the Junior Program was merged into the Central Conservatory of Music Youth Program and relocated to Tianjin. In 1951, Sheng Mingyao was selected to join the China Youth Artists Group （中国青年文工团） to attend the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin, and toured Eastern Europe for one year. After the successful tour, Sheng Mingyao did not return to the Central Conservatory but joined the newly founded Central Song and Dance Group （中央歌舞团） based on the Youth Artists Group. In 1956, the orchestra of the Central Song and Dance Group was reorganized into the Central Philharmonic Society. Sheng Mingyao became a founding member.

From 1957 to 1960, Sheng Mingyao was sent to the Soviet Union on a Chinese government scholarship. He studied with famous cellist Sviatoslav Knushevitsky at the Moscow Conservatory. Upon returning to China, he was appointed Principal Cello of the Central Philharmonic Society, a position he held until he immigrated to Canada in 1990. During his tenure, he participated in many major events, such as the ice-breaking tour of Japan in 1972, the all-Beethoven symphony cycle concerts and recordings in the early 1980s, as well as a cross-US tour in 1987. He participated in the orchestra’s collaboration with world renowned musicians including Isaac Stern (“From Mao to Mozart”), Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Fou Ts’ong, Seiji Ozawa, Herbert von Karajan, Eugene Ormandy, etc. And he was also part of the World Philharmonic Orchestra led by Lorin Maazel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1986.

(Photos provided by Dong Sheng, son of Sheng Mingyao)