Biography
Anna Guo ranks among the foremost yang-qin performers worldwide thanks to her exceptional technical command of the Chinese hammered dulcimer. Before leaving her homeland, she appeared on Chinese stages as Guo Min-qing; after settling in Canada in 1996 she began using the Westernized name Anna Guo. She continues to maintain a busy schedule of concerts and instruction centered on traditional Chinese repertoire.
Details of her earlier professional life remain scarce. Guo has performed Chinese classical music since the 1960s. Between 1985 and the year of her emigration she directed the Shanghai Women’s Silk String Quintet and served on the faculty of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The ensemble traveled throughout Asia and Europe and issued several recordings that circulate only within China. In the early 1990s she also issued two solo albums in her native country.
Upon acquiring Canadian citizenship in 1996, Guo established residence in Toronto, Ontario. She resumed teaching, founded the Dunhuang Chamber Ensemble, and has since taken the group on tours across North America. Two instructional volumes on yang-qin technique that she authored are now standard texts for students of the instrument. In 2001 she was invited to join a select group of Asian-Canadian artists on the Montreal-based Oliver Sudden label, resulting in the solo recording Chinese Traditional Yang-Qin Music—the release that remains her most accessible work internationally.
Details of her earlier professional life remain scarce. Guo has performed Chinese classical music since the 1960s. Between 1985 and the year of her emigration she directed the Shanghai Women’s Silk String Quintet and served on the faculty of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The ensemble traveled throughout Asia and Europe and issued several recordings that circulate only within China. In the early 1990s she also issued two solo albums in her native country.
Upon acquiring Canadian citizenship in 1996, Guo established residence in Toronto, Ontario. She resumed teaching, founded the Dunhuang Chamber Ensemble, and has since taken the group on tours across North America. Two instructional volumes on yang-qin technique that she authored are now standard texts for students of the instrument. In 2001 she was invited to join a select group of Asian-Canadian artists on the Montreal-based Oliver Sudden label, resulting in the solo recording Chinese Traditional Yang-Qin Music—the release that remains her most accessible work internationally.
Albums