Bai Yunpeng

Also known as Zi Yiqing

Bai Yunpeng, courtesy name Yiqing, came from Gaojiaquan village in Dong'an, Zhili, now Anci in Langfang, Hebei. He sang with his father around Yongqing, Anci and Bazhou, studied Xihe dagu with the blind performer Shi Zhenlin, and in 1900 moved to Tianjin, where he sang jingyun dagu in a style of his own, the Bai school. In the 1930s he was named with Liu Baoquan and Zhang Xiaoxuan as one of the Three Masters of the drum, and in Shanghai he was given a plaque reading Unique in Its Own Right. His pieces include Daiyu Burns Her Poems, Mourning Daiyu, Baidi City and Weeping at the Ancestral Temple; his pupils included Yan Qiuxia and Fu Shaofang. He retired in 1951 and died in Beijing on 6 April 1952.