China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Indian-born composer set to debut work in Beijing
In August 2008, the Chinese opera Mulan made its debut at the Vienna State Opera House. The opera not only won praise from audiences in the Austrian capital but also witnessed the start of a friendship between Guan Xia, the composer of the opera, and Vijay Upadhyaya, who conducted the rehearsal of the Vienna Imperial Philharmonic Choir for the opera.
“I can still recall how Upadhyaya trained the chorus so efficiently and impressively,” says Guan.
In 2009, Guan, the director of the China National Symphony Orchestra, invited Upadhyaya to be the conductor and composer for the Chinese National Orchestra and Chorus.
For the past eight years, Upadhyaya, who was born in Lucknow, the capital of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and is now based in Vienna, spends about three months every year in Beijing, working with the orchestra and chorus.
On Nov 13, the China National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will premiere Upadhyaya’s composition Chang’an Men in Beijing.
On Dec 11, the work will be performed by the Vienna University Philharmonic at the Musikverein in Vienna.
Upadhyaya, who will take the baton at the two performances, says: “The work was commissioned at the end of last year by Guan Xia. And I wanted to give this work as a gift to my friends in the China National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, who have been good to me. They are more than employers and colleagues.”
Chang’an Men is the second symphony by the 51-year-old composer. It is a musical journey through various periods of Chinese history and culture.
In the work, the composer combines Western symphonic and choral techniques with traditional Chinese music, literature and philosophy.
His first symphony composition, Prayer Flags, premiered in 2014 in Vienna. It is based on Indian literature and melodies.
The 75-minute Chang’an Men, for orchestra, a 16-part chorus and two soloists, contains four movements — the first movement incorporates texts from The Analects by Confucius; the second movement is based on poems from The Book of Songs (Shi Jing), the most ancient collection of Chinese poetry compiled in the 6th century BC; the third movement is inspired by a traditional Nanyin song; and the fourth movement is based on Tao Te Ching, a text written by Chinese sage Laozi around the 6th century BC.
The work also features traditional Chinese instruments, including the guzheng (Chinese zither), and Nanyin singer Cai Yayi.
Cai performs in Nanyin, an ancient Chinese music art form, which was listed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.
According to the composer, he named the work Chang’an Men, because men in Chinese is gate, and the composition relates to his good wishes for lasting peace.
Chang’an is also the name of the ancient Chinese capital (now known as Xi’an), which was the start of the ancient Silk Road.
“I read Chinese philosophy after I arrived in China. I found that the ideas of Confucius and Laozi are important in the present day, not just for the Chinese, but for the world. For example, we try to escape our daily lives and look for peace,” says Upadhyaya.
In his composition, Upadhyaya has created a melody that strictly follows the four tones of the Chinese language, giving the language foremost importance.
“First, I occupied myself deeply with these Chinese ideas and tried to recite them like a Chinese person. Then I had to think of the melody,” the composer says.
“We then started the rehearsal and some of the chorus members told me that the work sounded like an old Chinese song. That’s what I wanted.”
Upadhyaya learned to play the piano in childhood. He also completed diploma studies in Indian percussion (tabla) and dance (kathak) in India.
In 1987, he moved to Austria, where he studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz.
He then began conducting a church choir and a brass band in the east of Styria province to finance his studies. In 1994, he moved to Vienna where he now lives and directs the Vienna University Philharmonic.
Upadhyaya likes traveling, which, he says, is “a source of inspiration and energy for my compositions and for me as a whole”. So, he has been going to remote valleys in the Himalayas at least once a year for the past 30 years.
After traveling to Southwest China’s Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, he plans to launch a project in which he bases his compositions on the music of Chinese ethnic groups.
“I live in two worlds — China and Europe.
“For us, with Asian traditions, we need to use the music techniques of the West to create our own musical identity,” he says.