Ming Ke, an acclaimed Pipa virtuoso, has mesmerized audiences around the world as a soloist with leading orchestras in China, Japan, Spain, and the United States since her debut in 1985. Her performances have been hailed by the Cincinnati Enquirer as graceful and expressive. Ming Ke is an accomplished interpreter of both traditional and contemporary music for the four-stringed Chinese chordophone, the Pipa, whose history dates back to ca. 200 B.C. Born in Nanjing, China, Ming Ke earned a bachelor's degree in Pipa Performance from the Fine Arts College in Nanjing in 1982.
After graduation, she taught aspiring Pipa students for a decade at her alma mater while performing solo concerts and orchestral performances with the principal orchestras in Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Hubei, China and Nagoya, Japan. She has also won numerous awards in various Chinese music festivals and competitions. In 1993, Ming Ke relocated to the United States with her family, settling there after a brief period in Barcelona, Spain. Since then, she has appeared as a soloist and orchestral performer in festivals, universities, performing arts centers, and Chinese gatherings across the country from Arizona to New York.
Her performances in Cincinnati, OH, where she now resides, have included numerous solo concerts and collaborations with the Cincinnati Symphony, Pops, and Chamber Orchestras under the batons of Erich Kunzel, John Morris Russell, and Jingdong Cai. Recently, Ming Ke has been exploring digital music collaboration with digital music master composer Yi Qun. Using the "Human-Machine Integration" method, Ming Ke has combined Pipa solos with cutting-edge music technology, giving new life to traditional Pipa solos while still preserving the flavor of the original music. This breakthrough in digital music production has increased the scope for the development of digital music in the future. In addition to her various accomplishments, on January 31, 2023, Ming Ke performed the Star-Spangled Banner to open up a Chicago Bulls versus Los Angeles Clippers NBA game in front of over 20,000 people.