Zhou Xiaoyan

Born in Wuhan,[3] Zhou's father, Zhou Cangbai (also known as Chou Tsang-po[4]), was a wealthy banker. She was educated at a Roman Catholic school in Shanghai which exposed her to studies in Western music. She was also influenced in her youth by the White Russian and Jewish musicians who were prevalent in 1930s Shanghai.[2]

In 1936, at the age of 18, Zhou began her professional musical training at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.[2] While a student at the conservatory she was a member in a performance art troupe. She rose to fame in her native country shortly after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Wishing to raise the morale of the Chinese people facing the invasion by Japan, she sang the patriotic song The Great Wall Ballad (长城谣) at concerts in Wuhan and Singapore which were highly regarded and inspired financial aid and the conscription of soldiers for the war effort.[3]

In 1938 Zhou left China for studies in France after her voice teacher in Singapore told her that her voice was "too throaty".[3][2] She pursued studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and later at the Conservatoire russe de Paris Serge Rachmaninoff.[2] While at the latter institution her voice blossomed into a "bell-like lyric coloratura", and she befriended composer Nikolai Tcherepnin.[2]

After eight years of studying, she embarked on a career as a concert soprano, beginning with a performance in Luxembourg in 1946.[3] While she had considered pursuing work as an operatic soprano, she pursued the concert repertoire of composers like Claude Debussy and Gabriel Fauré instead given that, according to Zhou, "China had no opera at that time".[2]

In 1946 Zhou was a featured soloist at the first Prague Spring International Music Festival; a performance which earned her the nickname the "Chinese nightingale".[2] While at the festival she became acquainted with many luminary musicians of the 20th century, including Leonard Bernstein, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, and Dmitri Shostakovich.[2] Concerts in other major European cities followed from 1946 to 1947, including performances in London, Paris, and cities in the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.[3][2]

At the bequest of her father, Zhou abandoned her European concert tour and returned home to Shanghai in 1947.[2] In 1949 she became acquainted with Premier Zhou Enlai and writers Ba Jin and Ding Ling at a cultural conference on literature and art organized by the Chinese government. The three men encouraged her to pursue work performing for and teaching her craft to the people of China.[3][2] She spent the next ten years performing wherever the Chinese government sent her; whether it be for everyday people at factories and shipyards, or on official tours overseas to the countries of India, Poland, North Korea, and the Soviet Union.[2] She also joined the faculty of the Shanghai Conservatory in 1949.[3] She married Chinese film director Zhang Junxiang on May 5, 1952.

On March 4, 2016, Zhou died at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, aged 98.[5]