Founded in 1986, the Shenzhen Arts School (SAS) is the only full-time secondary art school in the city. The main mission is to cultivate outstanding art talents. After thirty years of hard work and painstaking efforts, the SAS has developed from an unknown primary school into a national first-class secondary art school with all kinds of specialties and a strong faculty, making a certain impact in the international art education circles.

Offering courses in three major categories- music, dance and fine arts. The department of music has five subjects’ education: Keyboard Performance, Orchestral Performance, Chinese traditional Instrumental Performance, Modern Music and Art, and Vocal Music. The dance department covers Chinese Dance, Ballet, Ballroom and Latin Dance. The department of fine arts mainly focuses on the Artistic Design. Since 2012, the SAS has offered a new subject– Broadcasting Hosting and Performing Arts.

Each year, more than 60% of the music students were admitted to renowned music colleges at home and abroad. More than 50% and 40% of the students majoring in ballet and Chinese dance entered top dance academies respectively. A group of world-renowned young pianists such as Li Yundi, Chen Sa, Zhang Haochen, etc,-have sprung up. The piano education brand led by Professor Dan Zhaoyi has been a gilt cultural card of Shenzhen, allowing the SAS to become both the pacesetter among domestic similar schools and a famous school in the field of international art education.

Presently, the SAS has more than 200 full- and part-time teachers. Most of them are outstanding graduates from well-known art colleges both at home and abroad, overseas Chinese returnees, and teachers of national top colleges and universities. Each year, a large number of domestic and foreign experts are attracted to the SAS to give lectures, pay visits or perform. The SAS has set up a youth symphony orchestra, a teacher-and-student traditional instruments’ orchestra, a student dance company, and a variety of small artistic practice groups. These orchestras and groups visited Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and many other countries in North Africa, and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan on behalf of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China and the Shenzhen Municipal Government. They also participated in important performances organized by the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and the Shenzhen Municipal Government for many times, becoming the backbone of the cultural life in the SSEZ. These orchestras and groups made a significant contribution to Shenzhen’s foreign cultural exchanges and raising Shenzhen’s profile.

Under Shenzhen’s development strategy of “culture-based city construction” and in the great cause of promoting the great development and prosperity of the socialist culture, the SAS is moving towards a more magnificent goal with higher demands, more standardized management, a more innovative system and more rigorous work.