Lucy Zhao
赵路曦
born in Beijing, is a Chinese lute pipa player.
She played in the pipa orchestra at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Lucy graduated from the China Conservatory with a bachelor’s degree in pipa and took part in conservatory orchestra tours to the USA, South Korea and many Chinese cities. In the summer of 2015, she gave her final concert at the Beijing Opera Theatre Zhengyici. The following year, Lucy moved to Vienna to study cultural management and has since been actively involved in ensembles, orchestras and free improvisation sessions in Europe. She performed as a soloist in 2018 and 2019 at the Altes Rathaus Vienna and Mozarthaus Vienna.
Since graduating, Lucy has lived in Berlin and is a member of the ensemble ɛkstʁaktə under the direction of Sandeep Bhagwati, with whom she performed in a project at the Berliner Festspiele in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and at ARTE Concert as well as at the opening days of the Humboldt Forum.
Lucy has been working as a project manager at the Orchestra of Cultures since 2020.
The pipa (琵琶) is a plucked bowl-necked lute used in traditional Chinese music and one of the most popular Chinese instruments. The instrument probably already existed in China during the Han dynasty (around 2000 years ago). Although the term pipa was historically used for a variety of plucked chordophones, it has referred exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument since the Tang Dynasty (7th century).