Shenyang Conservatory of Music was founded in Yan’an by Mao Tzedong and Chou Enlai in 1938 as Lu Xun Academy of Arts. It was the first higher art institute established by the Communist Party of China. The school motto “Tense, Seriousness, Diligence and Modesty" was wrote by Mao Tzedong. After the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the academy moved from Yan’an to the northeast region, and in 1949 it was renamed Northeast Lu Xun Literature and Art College. In 1953, the Northeast Music Academy was established based on the music department of the Northeast Lu Xun Academy of Arts. In 1958, it was renamed as the Shenyang Conservatory of Music. 

Since the establishment of the conservatory, we have always regarded promoting prosperity of the national music culture and serving the people as our mission. Shenyang Conservatory of Music has made outstanding contributions in various historical stages including national independence period and people’s liberation period, socialist revolution period, reform and opening up period and socialist modernization period. The conservatory has trained tens of thousands of music and dance talents for the country and created a large number of works with huge social influences, such as "The Yellow River Chorus", "Revolutionary People Are Always Young", "We Are Walking on the Road", "Me and My Motherland", making important contributions to our country’s cultural undertakings and higher art education. After the joint efforts of several generations of students and teachers, our conservatory has continued to grow and develop. It has made considerable progress and development in subject construction and professional development, education and teaching reform and management, talents training and faculty team construction, scientific research and artistic practice.

The conservatory now has four campuses: Sanhao Campus, Changqing Campus, Taoxian Campus and Dalian Campus. The conservatory is mainly composed of undergraduate and postgraduate education, and has affiliated secondary music school and affiliated middle dance school. At present, Shenyang Conservatory of Music has about 10,700 students, including more than 7,800 undergraduates, 725 postgraduates, 951 students from the affiliated secondary music school, and 1231 students from the affiliated secondary dance school. The conservatory has 15 undergraduate majors of the art field in Art Theory, Music and Dance, Theatre and Film, and Design. The Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council has granted two master’s degrees in the first-level subject for the conservatory including arts theory, music and dance disciplines. The conservatory was also granted the first batch of MFA. In 2016, the conservatory was identified as the key construction college in Liaoning provincial first-class university by the People’s Government of Liaoning Province, and the “Music and Dance” was the first-class construction subject in Liaoning Province.

The conservatory has a strong faculty and research team. There are 1069 full-time teachers, including 395 full-time teachers with the title of associate professor or above, accounting for 36.95%. There are 680 full-time teachers with master’s degree or above, accounting for 63.61%, and 51 full-time teachers with doctor’s degree, accounting for 4.77%. The conservatory has 1 winner of the Famous teacher Award for higher education of Ministry of Education. It has 1 the Ministry of Education Colleges and Universities Teaching Masters Award winner, 6 State Council special allowance specialists, 1 Liaoning provincial leadership talent, 2 Liaoning provincial distinguished professor, 2 Liaoning provincial outstanding experts, 3 Liaoning Provincial Propaganda and Culture System "Four batches of projects" talents, 3 "Revitalizing the Liaoning Talents Program" youth top-notch talents, 9 Liaoning Provincial General Higher Colleges and Universities  Undergraduate Teaching Masters Award winners, 1 national outstanding teacher and 2 Liaoning provincial outstanding teachers.

The existing teaching room area of the conservatory is 167784.40 square meters, and the laboratory area is 18929.03 square meters. As of the end of 2019, the total value of teaching and research instruments and equipments were 107.9772 million Yuan. There are 155 multimedia classrooms, 10 computer classrooms, 1,416 student practice rooms, and 479 teacher’s studios. There are concert hall, chamber music halls, multi-purpose halls, music theaters, recording studios for teaching and artistic practice, as well as recital halls, observation halls, rehearsal halls, chorus classrooms, ensemble classrooms, recording studios, piano tuning studio, stringed instrument production studio, musical instrument acoustics testing laboratory, non-editing training classroom, film and television post-production laboratory, high-definition virtual studio and other undergraduate professional teaching, practical activity venues and facilities, which can meet the needs of specialty characteristic teaching.

The conservatory has music and dance institutes and other art research institutions, which forms a four-in-one education and teaching system including teaching, research, creation and artistic practice. There are 2 state-level specialties, 14 provincial first-class undergraduate education model majors, characteristic majors, model majors, comprehensive reform experimental majors and advantage and characteristic majors.

The Conservatory has established a number of art performance groups, including student-centered Northern Symphony Orchestra, Northern National Orchestra, Northern Women Folk Song Choir, Northern Youth Choir, Northern Youth Dance Troupe and Northern Pop Ensemble.

The conservatory was identified by the Ministry of Education as the "base for college students’ cultural quality education" and the "demonstration base for red classical art education in colleges and universities". It was awarded the title of "National Advanced Unit for School Art Education" and was successively designated as "Arts Training Base for Talents in the Province", "Key Research Base for Humanities and Social Sciences in Liaoning", "Chinese National Vocal Music Teaching Practice and Innovation Center", "Liaoning Academy of Higher Education Luyi Music and Culture Institute" by Liaoning Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government.

The conservatory adheres to the internationalization of education and has established friendly relations with more than 90 art academies and arts groups abroad. It has signed friendly cooperation agreements with more than 30 foreign famous high music colleges such as Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music and Royal Danish Academy of Music. The Shenyang Conservatory of Music and Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory Expert Teaching Center was established.

In the future, the conservatory will adhere to the concept of “rooting from the nation, integrating into the era, highlighting features and serving the society”. We will create fine arts, cultivate artistic talents with both ability and integrity and strive to build high-level, distinctive and internationalized first-rate music conservatory to contribute to the development and prosperity of socialist literature and art.