2024 RT Amination Banner.gif

China Daily

Focus> Life & Art> Content
Monday, November 18, 2019, 17:28
Classical ties deepen
By Chen Nan
Monday, November 18, 2019, 17:28 By Chen Nan

Philadelphia Orchestra, China Conservatory of Music unveil a program to boost exchanges between professional musicians and students, Chen Nan reports.

Paul Roby (left), the associate principal second violin of the Philadelphia Orchestra, coaches Zhang Yueyang, a student of the China Conservatory of Music, in Beijing on Friday. It's part of the orchestra's residency program in China. (ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY)

When Zhang Yueyang played the first movement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, he was facing only one audience member - Paul Roby, the associate principal second violin of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In a classroom at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Roby from time to time accompanied Zhang's performance and stopped Zhang to offer him suggestions.

"You have to be careful about the tempo sometimes," Roby tells Zhang, an 18-year-old student of the conservatory's orchestral instruments department. "You should connect with the sound, always."

"I am not good at the romantic and softer passages in the piece. I am still digesting the class, but I'm finding it inspiring," says Zhang, born in Anyang, Henan province, who was introduced to music by his composer father and began to learn the violin at the age of 5.

On Friday morning, Roby gave master classes to three Chinese students and in the afternoon, he joined in the rehearsals for a concert, which was held on Saturday, featuring musicians from the Orchestra Academia China, an ensemble affiliated to the China Conservatory of Music. He played alongside three other musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra - violist Meng Wang, principal cello Hai-Ye Ni and violinist Mei Ching Huang.

The concert concluded the four American musicians' most recent trip to China as part of the Philadelphia Orchestra's residency tour, which set out to "further the orchestra's commitment to people-to-people exchanges through music", as Matias Tarnopolsky, president and chief executive officer of the orchestra, outlined in Beijing on Friday.

The weeklong trip to China also saw the four musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra visit Shanghai, where they took part in a series of coaching sessions and master classes at ShanghaiTech University from Nov 11 to Wednesday.

"Unlike the students of the China Conservatory of Music, who are classically trained musicians, the students of ShanghaiTech University mostly majored in science. They study music as amateurs and enjoy performing as a way of relaxation," says Roby, who joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1991. This was the first time that he held master classes in China, where he presented his Chinese students with a souvenir badge to commemorate the orchestra's tour of China as a gift in May.

In 1993, the violinist, who graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, toured with the Philadelphia Orchestra to China for the first time. With a performance at the Great Hall of the People in front a full house of around 10,000 people, Roby was impressed by how Chinese audiences appreciated music and over the years, returned to China with the orchestra on several occasions and witnessed the country's growing appetite for classical music.

Matias Tarnopolsky (left, front), president and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Orchestra, signs an agreement with Wang Liguang, president of the China Conservatory of Music, on cooperation between the two organizations over the next five years, in Beijing on Friday. (ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY)

On Friday, the Philadelphia Orchestra signed a cooperation agreement with the China Conservatory of Music, and announced that the China International Music (Violin) Competition will be held in Beijing in May 2020, and outlined a program of mutual cooperation over the next five years.

On May 4, the First China International Music (Piano) Competition, which was presented by the China Conservatory of Music and the Global Music Education League, was held in Beijing and three finalists - Alexander Malofeev, MacKenzie Melemed and Tony Siqi Yun - performed in the final round with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of its conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin. The final winner, Canadian pianist Tony Siqi Yun, won over the jury with a virtuoso performance of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1.

The violin competition next year will be open to violinists between the ages of 16 and 28, and the jury members will include Italian violinist Giovanni Angeleri, first-prize winner at the International Paganini Competition in 1997, Canadian violinist Martin Beaver and Huang Bin - the director of the orchestral instruments department at the China Conservatory of Music.

"Young musicians benefit from working with world-class orchestras and conductors. The competition will bring together prominent international musicians, performers and young musical talent. We will share music together," says Wang Liguang, president of the China Conservatory of Music and chairman of the Global Music Education League - a nonprofit organization founded in Beijing in 2017 that represents 60 international music schools.

"Supporting the younger generation of musicians to reach their full potential is important for the Philadelphia Orchestra. We have developed a unique friendship with China and we are looking forward to continuing this relationship," says Tarnopolsky, adding that in the next five years the orchestra will take part in more residencies in China.

In 1973, the Philadelphia Orchestra was invited by then US president Richard Nixon to visit China following in the wake of his historic trip a year earlier. Its performance in front of a packed house at Beijing's Cultural Palace of Nationalities was the first by an American orchestra since 1949. Well-known to Chinese music lovers, the orchestra has continued to visit the country over the decades.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn


Share this story

CHINA DAILY
HONG KONG NEWS
OPEN
Please click in the upper right corner to open it in your browser !