Training musicians, not stars, in China

Training musicians, not stars, in China

By Joyce Hor-Chung Lau
International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2005
FOSHAN, China
Xiong Yin, a soft-spoken 19-year-old cellist, has been training to become a musician for as long as she can remember. Her parents, cellists themselves, enrolled her in piano lessons at 4 years old and cello lessons at 6. She entered the Shanghai Conservatory when she was about 9 years old and was soon sent on government-organized trips to the West to perform and compete. At 14, she moved more than 1,000 kilometers from home to accept a scholarship at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Xiong is an expressive player with a good track record and fine technique, but she is not considered a star by the standards of China's musical elite. What makes her stand out, in a nation all but obsessed with producing the next world-famous virtuoso, is that she has little intention of becoming the next big thing.
"I don't necessarily want to be a soloist," she said while hauling around a cello case decorated with rainbow-colored stickers and small stuffed animals. "Is that strange to say? It's so much pressure. Maybe I like chamber music, trios and quartets - Mozart's, Haydn's and Ravel's. I like Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' and the Shostakovich eight. It feels good to work in a group."
It's an ironic thing to say, considering that Xiong was later chosen out of more than 200 students as the winner of the concerto competition at the inaugural Canton International Summer Music Academy. Located in what seems like the last parcel of southern China's lush hills not overtaken by factories, the academy is a first in the country and has been nicknamed "the Chinese Tanglewood" for its casual approach, use of a resident professional orchestra (the Guangzhou Symphony), picturesque setting and emphasis on ensemble playing.
"There is a very competitive attitude, which is very Asian," said the conductor Charles Dutoit, Cisma's music director and a regular visitor to China since 1982. "So the academy is very essential to the mentality toward music in China.
"The children in China learn an instrument and think they will be the next Heifetz," he continued, referring to the late virtuoso. "But you have millions of musicians in the world and only one Heifetz. It is the wrong attitude. It is simply not a good education system. Most young musicians in China will not make a good career if this continues."
Dutoit, along with the concert violinist Chantal Juillet, met repeatedly with the Guangdong Province authorities before finalizing the plan for Cisma. They had to find a middle ground between the government's desire to control the students' lives and the West's more liberal approach to education.
"The Europeans have a humanistic relationship with music, and our musicians grow up more slowly," Dutoit said. "In China, they grow up so fast. I just heard a 13-year-old pianist play with fantastic skill but play with no other knowledge. What does such a 13-year-old know about life?"
Apparently, not much, if judged by the participants from China's outer provinces, as they stared wide-eyed at the chandeliers, fountains, pillars and pools of the ostentatious Butterfly Valley resort, where Cisma is taking place courtesy of the Guangdong government. Clutching backpacks and instrument cases, they lined up to receive student packs, filled with rules against drinking, smoking, leaving the grounds, sleeping late or fraternizing with the opposite sex. (One rule purportedly proposed by the government - "Do not fall in love" - was later rescinded by Cisma's foreign advisers.)
"This project is very unusual for a country like China," said Lo King-man, Cisma's director of administration and the former head of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, who first offered the scholarship to Xiong.
"Conservatories on the mainland concentrated only on finding the one student who could win the world's most difficult competitions, like Yundi Li did, and the rest can be forgotten," he said. "It's very wasteful to develop all that talent, and then drop it."
Juillet, the head of the academy's chamber music department, struggled with China's singular focus on virtuosity when she conducted her 12-city audition tour through Southeast Asia.
"There is a lack of knowledge in China," said Juillet, who chose 200 musicians after hearing more than 500. "Some teachers did not want students to audition because there is a stigma that you only become an orchestral or chamber music player if you've failed otherwise. It's a very competitive world and conditions kids to be disappointed.
"I want to show these students how much fun and joy and friendship there can be with ensemble music," she added.
The Chinese government's efforts to build concert halls, opera houses and music academies all over the country is not without political motive. Ever concerned about its place in the world, China is eager to prove that it is not only an economic powerhouse, but a cultural one as well. In this context, Cisma is particularly significant because it is said that the late Leonard Bernstein had planned to open a music camp in China more than 15 years ago but backed out because China was not developed enough or open enough at the time.
"He wanted to do it with principal chairs of the Vienna Philharmonic and got quite advanced in his planning until 1989," Juillet said, referring to the year of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and widespread social unrest. Instead, Bernstein took his idea to Japan. In 1990, he opened the Sapporo-based Pacific Music Festival, a critically acclaimed academy where Dutoit later served as the music director and where Juillet works as the head of chamber music.
To do its part to bolster China's place on the international cultural scene, the Guangdong government offered full scholarships to all 200 Cisma students, whether there was financial need or not. It also built a 600-seat concert hall at the resort which, two days before the opening, was still being finished by camouflage-clad members of the People's Liberation Army - a sure sign that someone high in the ranks was pulling strings.
According to Juillet, the government "knows they don't know much" about producing an academy like this, which is why IMG Artists, the London-based arts management company, was hired to provide a stable of foreign tutors, including principal players from orchestras like the Montreal Symphony and the Royal Concertgebouw. IMG also arranged for the concert violinist Akiko Suwanai and other soloists to perform.
Still, the authorities wanted to keep a certain degree of control. "They wanted to approve all the repertoire the students played," Juillet said. And despite the emphasis on fun and cooperation, a concerto competition was included, perhaps out of fear that top young Chinese musicians would not attend without one.
This summer's winner, Xiong, will perform Elgar's Cello Concerto on July 31 during the finale concert, which, following a Tanglewood tradition, will feature Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" and fireworks. "My parents told me that, only if I win, will they come to see me," she said.


FOSHAN, China Xiong Yin, a soft-spoken 19-year-old cellist, has been training to become a musician for as long as she can remember. Her parents, cellists themselves, enrolled her in piano lessons at 4 years old and cello lessons at 6. She entered the Shanghai Conservatory when she was about 9 years old and was soon sent on government-organized trips to the West to perform and compete. At 14, she moved more than 1,000 kilometers from home to accept a scholarship at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Xiong is an expressive player with a good track record and fine technique, but she is not considered a star by the standards of China's musical elite. What makes her stand out, in a nation all but obsessed with producing the next world-famous virtuoso, is that she has little intention of becoming the next big thing.
"I don't necessarily want to be a soloist," she said while hauling around a cello case decorated with rainbow-colored stickers and small stuffed animals. "Is that strange to say? It's so much pressure. Maybe I like chamber music, trios and quartets - Mozart's, Haydn's and Ravel's. I like Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' and the Shostakovich eight. It feels good to work in a group."
It's an ironic thing to say, considering that Xiong was later chosen out of more than 200 students as the winner of the concerto competition at the inaugural Canton International Summer Music Academy. Located in what seems like the last parcel of southern China's lush hills not overtaken by factories, the academy is a first in the country and has been nicknamed "the Chinese Tanglewood" for its casual approach, use of a resident professional orchestra (the Guangzhou Symphony), picturesque setting and emphasis on ensemble playing.
"There is a very competitive attitude, which is very Asian," said the conductor Charles Dutoit, Cisma's music director and a regular visitor to China since 1982. "So the academy is very essential to the mentality toward music in China.
"The children in China learn an instrument and think they will be the next Heifetz," he continued, referring to the late virtuoso. "But you have millions of musicians in the world and only one Heifetz. It is the wrong attitude. It is simply not a good education system. Most young musicians in China will not make a good career if this continues."
Dutoit, along with the concert violinist Chantal Juillet, met repeatedly with the Guangdong Province authorities before finalizing the plan for Cisma. They had to find a middle ground between the government's desire to control the students' lives and the West's more liberal approach to education.
"The Europeans have a humanistic relationship with music, and our musicians grow up more slowly," Dutoit said. "In China, they grow up so fast. I just heard a 13-year-old pianist play with fantastic skill but play with no other knowledge. What does such a 13-year-old know about life?"
Apparently, not much, if judged by the participants from China's outer provinces, as they stared wide-eyed at the chandeliers, fountains, pillars and pools of the ostentatious Butterfly Valley resort, where Cisma is taking place courtesy of the Guangdong government. Clutching backpacks and instrument cases, they lined up to receive student packs, filled with rules against drinking, smoking, leaving the grounds, sleeping late or fraternizing with the opposite sex. (One rule purportedly proposed by the government - "Do not fall in love" - was later rescinded by Cisma's foreign advisers.)
"This project is very unusual for a country like China," said Lo King-man, Cisma's director of administration and the former head of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, who first offered the scholarship to Xiong.
"Conservatories on the mainland concentrated only on finding the one student who could win the world's most difficult competitions, like Yundi Li did, and the rest can be forgotten," he said. "It's very wasteful to develop all that talent, and then drop it."
Juillet, the head of the academy's chamber music department, struggled with China's singular focus on virtuosity when she conducted her 12-city audition tour through Southeast Asia.
"There is a lack of knowledge in China," said Juillet, who chose 200 musicians after hearing more than 500. "Some teachers did not want students to audition because there is a stigma that you only become an orchestral or chamber music player if you've failed otherwise. It's a very competitive world and conditions kids to be disappointed.
"I want to show these students how much fun and joy and friendship there can be with ensemble music," she added.
The Chinese government's efforts to build concert halls, opera houses and music academies all over the country is not without political motive. Ever concerned about its place in the world, China is eager to prove that it is not only an economic powerhouse, but a cultural one as well. In this context, Cisma is particularly significant because it is said that the late Leonard Bernstein had planned to open a music camp in China more than 15 years ago but backed out because China was not developed enough or open enough at the time.
"He wanted to do it with principal chairs of the Vienna Philharmonic and got quite advanced in his planning until 1989," Juillet said, referring to the year of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and widespread social unrest. Instead, Bernstein took his idea to Japan. In 1990, he opened the Sapporo-based Pacific Music Festival, a critically acclaimed academy where Dutoit later served as the music director and where Juillet works as the head of chamber music.
To do its part to bolster China's place on the international cultural scene, the Guangdong government offered full scholarships to all 200 Cisma students, whether there was financial need or not. It also built a 600-seat concert hall at the resort which, two days before the opening, was still being finished by camouflage-clad members of the People's Liberation Army - a sure sign that someone high in the ranks was pulling strings.
According to Juillet, the government "knows they don't know much" about producing an academy like this, which is why IMG Artists, the London-based arts management company, was hired to provide a stable of foreign tutors, including principal players from orchestras like the Montreal Symphony and the Royal Concertgebouw. IMG also arranged for the concert violinist Akiko Suwanai and other soloists to perform.
Still, the authorities wanted to keep a certain degree of control. "They wanted to approve all the repertoire the students played," Juillet said. And despite the emphasis on fun and cooperation, a concerto competition was included, perhaps out of fear that top young Chinese musicians would not attend without one.
This summer's winner, Xiong, will perform Elgar's Cello Concerto on July 31 during the finale concert, which, following a Tanglewood tradition, will feature Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" and fireworks. "My parents told me that, only if I win, will they come to see me," she said.



See link at http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/20/features/music.php