Jiwu Li is a Cello Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Vice-President of the String Society of the China Musicians Association, and the Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM). He is also the prize-winner of the first National Cello Competition in China.
As an educator, his students have won multiple awards in significant international and domestic competitions. This includes consecutive first prize in the National Cello Competition in China sponsored by the Fomer Ministry of Culture for three consecutive years, as well as the gold prize and prestigious award in the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians and the International Krzysztof Penderecki Cello Competition in Poland, etc.
In 2004, He was awarded the Best Mentor Award of the National Cello Competition by the Ministry of Culture of China and he was conferred awards as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM) in 2013. Additionally, he presided over the “International First-Class String Performance Talent Training” of Shanghai Conservatory of Music and won the second prize of “National Teaching Achievement” of the Ministry of Education of China in 2014. In 2017, he won the Baogang Education Foundation “Outstanding Teacher Award”, and in 2019, the Ministry of Education awarded the title of “National Outstanding Teacher.”
Li is a highly-sought teacher and international judge to give masterclasses and as a lecturer. He has lectured at famous conservatories in Europe and the USA. Li is also a visiting professor at Texas Christian University in the United States, and the Royal Academy of Music in the UK. Since 2007, he has been a regular visiting lecturer at the Wells Cathedral School in the UK. He has also been invited to participate in many prestigious music festivals as a performer, giving many solo and chamber music performances and being the teacher and lecturer such as Morningside Music Bridge in Canada, Edinburgh in England, and Tanglewood in Boston, USA.
Li was the jury at the Cello Competition and Chamber Competition of the China Music Golden Bell Awards, the National Cello Competition organized by the Former Ministry of Culture of China, the International Krzysztof Penderecki Cello Competition in Poland, the GML Music Competition in the UK, and the TCU International Festival Competition in the USA. He is also the Artistic Director of the National Youth Cello Festival (Ningbo and Xiamen ) and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music International Cello Festival.
Li was the principal of Xinghai Conservatory Middle School and the head of the Orchestra Instruments Department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.