Profile: Xi Jinping: Man of the people, statesman of vision (22)

（Xinhua）  09:24, December 24, 2012

She was the first in China to obtain a master's degree in national vocal music. She is a representative figure of national vocal music and one of the founders of the school of national vocal music.

Her most famous works include On the Plains of Hope, People from Our Village, and We Are Yellow River and Taishan Mountain.

She was the winner of many top awards at national vocal music contests. She played the leading roles in the Chinese national operas The White-haired Girl and Mulan, among others. She also won the highest theatrical award in China, or the Plum Blossom Prize, and the highest performance art award, the Wenhua Prize.

Peng has attributed her accomplishments to the people and said she should contribute all her talent to the people. Over the past 30-plus years, she has given hundreds of free performances for people from all different walks of life across the country as an expression of gratitude or appreciation. These included performances in impoverished mountain areas, coastal areas, oil fields, mines and barracks, as well as in deserts and the snowy plateau. She also performed in Wenchuan after the devastating earthquake of 2008, in Beijing's Xiaotangshan after the SARS outbreak and in flood-hit Jiujiang in Jiangxi Province.

To better introduce Chinese national vocal music and national opera to the world, Peng took the lead to play a solo concert in Singapore in 1993. She has also performed in more than 50 countries and regions representing China, becoming a world-famous Cultural Ambassador for China.

She produced and played the leading role in the opera Mulan, which was performed at New York City's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and at the Vienna State Opera House in Austria.

Peng is currently shifting her focus from performance to education, aiming to nurture more talented people and produce more masterpieces.

Peng is very much committed to charity work. She is a WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, a national AIDS prevention advocate, and an ambassador for the prevention of juvenile delinquency and for tobacco control. At a recent World AIDS Day activity raising awareness about AIDS, she was called "Mama Peng" by AIDS orphans.