Pu-Qi Jiang, (pronounced Poo-Chi Jiang) is the recipient of the University of Memphis Faudree Professorship Award and the Germantown Arts Alliance 2011 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts.  He has enjoyed an active international conducting schedule as well as all levels of orchestral and conducting teaching for the past twenty years. Since 1990, he has conducted many professional orchestras in the United States, China, Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Jordan, Macedonia, and the United Kingdom. He has led university faculty and student ensembles on concert tours in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Salzburg, Prague and Vienna. He conducted the University of Memphis Symphony Orchestra in performance of Mahler’s Symphony #2 (mov. I, IV and V), which won the second prize in the American Prize Orchestral Performance (college/university) Competition in 2011.

Maestro Jiang began his career at an early age as both violinist and choirboy in Shanghai. In 1956, he entered the Music Middle School affiliated with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music where he majored in violin. He was selected for admission to the conducting department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of 18. His professional career began in 1968 after his graduation from the conservatory.

After conducting many professional orchestras and ensembles in China for more than eighteen years, Maestro Jiang came to the United States in 1986. Having been awarded full scholarships by the University of Cincinnati and the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, he studied advanced conducting at the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) of the University of Cincinnati with Maestro Gerhard Samuel. At CCM, Jiang received his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Orchestral Conducting. Jiang was named the Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra in 1989. From 1991 to 1992, Professor Jiang worked as the Conducting Assistant to Maestro Jesús López-Cobos, Erich Kunzel and Keith Lockhart at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Prior to his University of Memphis appointment, he was the Music Director and Conductor at Penn State and Ohio University, where he conducted three orchestras and taught advanced orchestral conducting for both graduate and undergraduate students.

Dr. Jiang's M.M and D.M.A orchestral conducting programs have attracted talented young conductors from Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, Germany, Jordan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan, and the United States. Some of his students have won the Solti Foundation U.S. Award, the fellowship for American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the honor citation for the Orchestral Conducting Competition in 2010 from the America Prize.

Dr. Jiang also has a passion for sharing his music experience with young music lovers under age of 18. He is the founder of the Germantown Performing Arts Centre Youth Symphony Orchestra. He led this young group to a very successful concert tour to China in the summer of 2011.