Made in China
Throughout the past decade, classical music has been undergoing a surge across China thanks to conductor Long Yu’s dynamism and his passionate faith in the country’s young talent. Oliver Condy reports
Oliver Condy reports from Shanghai and Guangzhou on China’s burgeoning classical music culture
Ivisited China back in January supposedly before anyone knew anything about COVID-19 – before it even had a name. Here I was in one of the most crowded places on earth, swept along through those livestock markets we’ve now read so much about, passing cages of live bullfrogs and, in their thousands, fresh eggs of subtle blues, whites and browns. Live chickens, tanks of fish and mounds of fresh Chinese greens shared spaces with cheap souvenirs in streets packed with so many people, the throng seemed to melt into the distant haze.
Minutes later, I was rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s most inspirational artists inside staggering musical facilities, watching them work with a new generation of players, coming together to build China’s classical music future, brick by brick. At the start of 2020, China was operating at full tilt. After a week in Shanghai and Guangzhou, the picture I assembled was of hope and ambition, a strong desire by the Chinese for its country to be at the forefront of classical music, drawing on the finest that the West had to offer, all the while propagating home-grown talent.
It’s a story with an exceptional individual at its centre – conductor Long Yu – whose unparalleled passion and loyalty to this musical
cause has, over the past couple of decades, lit an inextinguishable flame at China’s musical heart.
‘‘ In China things simply get done. And that policy seems to extend to classical music ’’
A remarkable journey
Connecting my hotel with Shanghai Symphony Hall is a road so pocked and worn that motorbikes have to take to the pavements, forcing pedestrians into the road. However, the following morning, the entire 400m stretch has been resurfaced, with no evidence of roadworks. It’s hard for a westerner like me to comprehend that in China things simply get done. And that policy seems to extend to classical music.
At 141 years, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is the oldest professional symphony orchestra in China. It’s also its greatest. In his nine years at its helm, Long Yu has transformed it from the inside out, re-auditioning its players (now 50-50 Chinese and international), spearheading a state-of-the-art concert hall and chamber venue and increasing its staff from 20 to 130. In 2018, Deutsche Grammophon signed an exclusive deal with the SSO, and last summer they made their debut appearance at the BBC Proms. (In 2014, Long Yu also conducted the first Chinese orchestra to appear at the Proms, the China Philharmonic). I’m here for one of the orchestra’s most important concerts this year – the Chinese premiere of Takemitsu’s November Steps. Takemitsu’s music never gets played here – the enmity between China and Japan has made cultural exchange almost impossible. ‘I noticed Takemitsu when I was a young man and was fascinated by his music. It’s taken me 40 years to bring this piece to the stage,’ confirms Yu.
While November Steps is this evening’s main attraction, the Concerto for Orchestra by the SSO’S composer-in-residence Zhou Tian best represents Long Yu’s mission. ‘Commissions from young composers are crucial in keeping music alive,’ Yu says. ‘I have nothing against superstars, but they should share the stage with lesser-known musicians.’ To show his commitment to fresh talent, the SSO has been playing Tian’s entire output throughout the season. Yu is determined to future-proof the classical music scene: ‘We need to take care of the next 100 years.’ Look through the orchestra’s brochure and young unknown musicians rub shoulders with the greats. The next generation is getting an early taste of the spotlight.
But he needs to make sure the orchestra itself survives into the next decades. The Shanghai Orchestra Academy (SOA) is one of Long Yu’s bids – alongside the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition and the
SSO’S two-week annual festival – to find and develop young talent. Now in its sixth year, the SOA partners with the New York Philharmonic and Shanghai Conservatory of Music to train a new generation of players through top-quality one-to-one tuition, chamber music masterclasses and extensive professional orchestral experience. Its two-year course is free to attendees, and of the 100 players that have gone through its gates, 90 have gone on to
secure places in orchestras across China and throughout the world. ‘We want the very best players to attend the Academy,’ says Doug He, the SOA’S executive director, ‘but where they’re from is not important. We want good musicians and music has no boundaries.’
Long Yu’s influence spreads far wider than Shanghai. Rumour has it that he has the ear of the Chinese president, which would make him the country’s most powerful musician. It’s fair to say that without his influence, the orchestral music scene here would look very different. Yu grew up watching the effects of the Cultural Revolution (see right) where even the music of Debussy was condemned as ‘the dirt left behind’ by western imperial attitudes. Ironically, Yu says, the period actually spurred many on to take up music. ‘The motivation to learn an instrument,’ he reveals, ‘was to avoid being sent to the country to work in the fields. People ask why there is so much musical talent today. That’s the reason – and it’s a stupid one!’
After graduating in conducting from the Shanghai Conservatory, Yu spent time in the late 1980s studying in Cologne and Berlin and was inspired to bring home something of Germany’s exciting musical culture. ‘At that time, not many people came back,’ Yu told the Shanghai Daily. ‘I decided to make something in my own country.’
Since then, things have changed a lot. Just a decade ago, it was still the case that Chinese
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Just a decade ago, it was still the case that Chinese musicians would disappear for good to Europe or the US
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musicians would disappear for good to Europe or the US, and it was rare that western musicians would be tempted eastwards, let alone to stay. Today, however, a robust East-west cultural exchange is in place, China’s orchestras are improving rapidly and western musicians in their hundreds, orchestral and solo, are starting to feel their pull. If my time with the Academy students is anything to go by, young Eastern musicians now harbour as much of an ambition to work in China as they do in the US or Europe.
‘You would hardly believe what classical music was like here 20 years ago,’ says Yu. ‘There were no concert series. Yes, there were individual concerts, but there were few orchestras. Today, there are something like 70 in China, and those in Shanghai, Beijing and here in Guangzhou are on a super-professional scale, working with artists from every corner of the world.’
Just last year, he explains, representatives from 69 Chinese orchestras convened for the inaugural League of Chinese Orchestras in order to share best practice, and 11 conductors have volunteered to offer their advice to ensembles most in need of assistance. The hope, says He, is that Chinese orchestras can perform on the same level as their European and US cousins, all run with the same administrative expertise.
It’s all part of Yu’s ‘system’. ‘I noticed that without a system, nothing happens. Each institution that I’ve founded works together well,
and they’re then connected with international institutions that in turn understand cooperation.’ And his faith in the next generation is a strong leitmotif. ‘I stood down from the Beijing Music Festival on its 20th anniversary,’ he says. ‘The young artistic director who took over from me did a much better job! Young people have different views and passions and it’s important we allow them to express themselves.’
Young at heart
In China’s tropical south, the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra (GSO) has been conducted by Long Yu since 2003, and has become one of China’s top three ensembles, attracting players from across the Far East. Formerly known as Canton, Guangzhou is a sprawling metropolis of 13 million. Its perimeters bleed into Dongguan and Shenzhen, and finally into Hong Kong, making this area of south-east China one of the largest and most densely populated urban areas in the world. On every bend of the Pearl River which winds through the centre, the banks are tightly lined with high-rises and colossal architectural wonders as far as the eye can see.
Guangzhou is also one of China’s most important classical music cities. Xinhai Concert Hall, which houses China’s largest pipe organ, is often packed, says Yu, not because people want to be seen at a concert, but because they’ve started to engage with the music. In 2011, the GSO sprouted a sister orchestra, the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra, whose current conductor Huan Jing is regarded by Yu as his natural heir. And four years ago, Youth Music
Culture Guangdong (YMCG) took the city’s importance as a cultural centre further, inviting 70 young musicians from around the world to study with some of classical music’s finest in the school opposite Xinhai Hall. YMCG, another of Long Yu’s initiatives, has cellist Yo-yo Ma as its figurehead and one of its tutors, and this year numbered conductor Michael Stern, violinist Johnny Gandelsman and harpsichordist Avi Stein within its illustrious faculty.
YMCG is abuzz with energy – students are encouraged to work in groups, and improvisation, even within an orchestral setting, forms a large part of their experience. The assumption is that they can play. But can they integrate with their peers? ‘We’re trying to make our students ref lect on who they are as human beings first,’ Yo-yo Ma tells me, ‘rather than instil in them the need to do something perfectly. In the West these days, everything is done by metrics. You can’t get anything done unless you measure it.’ YMCG, he suggests, is a time to retool this modern thinking. The irony, not lost on Ma, is that this very act of artistic measurement is how the West has come to view Chinese music-making. ‘You heard the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra yesterday? It wasn’t just virtuosic technically; it was virtuosic musically and tonally.’
This cultural shift, says Ma, is born of Long Yu’s vision, learned in Europe and now sweeping across China. ‘He came back with a mission, and it’s a mission infused with incredible courage. Every once in a while, there comes a unique person at a unique time that can create seismic change in a country – and he is that person.’