Chinese Music
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shuttler
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the best piano version of 彩云追月 （cai yun zhui yue）~ Colourful clouds chasing the Moon I've ever heard
Jump to 42:20 if you are impatient with the ealier Beethoven PC 1 rendition:
Jump to 42:20 if you are impatient with the ealier Beethoven PC 1 rendition:
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shuttler
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i tried to learn chinese by myself once but failed miserably. whoever invented the characters must've been insane.
just take a bit more time since Chinese is a language with a long history
Putonghu (spoken Chinese) is a lot easier
learning any language through listening to the songs is a good inception and your are on the right track.
Jlaw
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In YouTube type in Madepossible for traditional Chinese music
哥们，谷歌了都不明白你意思
shuttler
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Chinese violinist wins Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition - Houston Chronicle
By Everett Evans | June 11, 2012
Xiao Wang, a 25-year-old violinist from China, has won the Texas Music Festival's Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition.
Xiao, who studies with Lucia Robert at the Manhattan School of Music, also received the Audience Choice Award at the competition on Sunday.
Seven finalists competed with solo performances for the opportunity to perform with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra on June 23 at the Moores Opera House on the University of Houston campus.
In addition to his appearance with the TMF orchestra, the winner also receives a concert date with the Leipzig Akademisches Orkester in 2013.
Robert also trained violinist Dan Zhu, who won the TMF's Young Artist Competition in 2000 and will be guest soloist for the series' concert on June 30.W
Now in its 23rd year, the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival is a month-long residency that brings together outstanding student musicians and distinguished conductors and faculty artists from around the world. Spanning 50 performances, master classes and seminars from June 4-July 1, the series is based at the UH's Moores School of Music and includes events at other venues throughout the region, including Texas A&M University in College Station.
Chinese violinist Ying Fu wins first prize at Rodolfo Lipizer competition
Friday, 21 September 2012
Chinese violinist Ying Fu, 28, won the €12,000 first prize at the Premio Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition in Gorizia, Italy. Fu, who studies with Cho-Liang Lin at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and previously studied there with the late Sergiu Luca, joined the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra in 2011.
Two South Korean violinists, 18-year-old Jaewon Kim and 20-year-old Jae Hyeong Lee, shared second prize in the competition.
Chinese violinist shares top prize at prestigious Budapest competition
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/culture/2012-09/16/c_131853131.htm
English.news.cn
2012-09-16 09:41:09
by Peter Murphy
BUDAPEST, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Wang Xiao from China and Aleksandra Kuls from Poland on Saturday performed a gala concert here after they shared the top prize at Budapest's 46th International Music Competition.
"I am very glad and excited to get the award," Wang, 25, told Xinhua after the gala concert at the Palace of Arts, which wrapped up the prestigious 10-day event.
Each year the competition focuses on a different instrument. The violin takes its turn in the spotlight every five years, and the viola was also included this year in the Jozsef Szigeti violin and viola competition.
Wang is the first Chinese violinist to win the violin competition. Born in Lanzhou, Gansu province, he began learning the instrument from his aunt, a violin teacher.
In 1997, he and his parents moved to Beijing from Xinjiang, and he was enrolled in the primary school of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. It was at that time that he decided what he wanted to do with his life, recalled Wang, who now studies in New York at the Manhattan School of Music.
Wang also won first prize at a recent music festival in Houston, where he played a Sibelius violin concerto just as during the gala concert in Budapest.
"I haven't taken part in many competitions as I do not really enjoy competing," he said after the concert. "Everyone has to conform to certain standards."
"Sometimes if you show too much personality, not every jury likes it. I, however, like to show my true feelings. I love the feeling of standing on stage though, and transmitting my feelings through the violin to the audience. Then they respond to me and have the same feeling. I hope that I can continue do this," he said.
Kuls, 21, who studies at the Academy of Music in Krakow, said the first place in the Szigeti competition was important for a violinist at the beginning of a career.
"It means it's more possible to be heard by some musicians, as well as TV and radio," she said.
Erno Kallai of Hungary came second and also won the audience prize. Kallai has spent the last six years studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
"This competition can give me opportunities to play more in Hungary now after six years away. I entered it to raise my profile in Hungary. I will stay here for a while performing, but will continue to give concerts in Europe and the US," added Kallai.
The international event drew 88 competitors in total and offered a first prize of 8,000 euros (10,400 U.S. dollars).
Chinese Violinist Wins Medal at Osaka International Music Competition - All China Women's Federation
December 27, 2012
Editor:Liu Weiguo
Chinese violinist Li Yuhe, who is currently pursuing a master's degree at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, won a bronze medal at the 13th Osaka International Music Competition held in Osaka of Japan this October, according to a report by Nouvelles D'Europe, an overseas Chinese newspaper in France.
Li, who is an alumnus of the well-known China Conservatory, comes from a musical family and has won many awards, including a gold medal at the famous Les Clés D'O competition this April.
Two violinists share top prize at Cooper International Competition | Latest | The Strad
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Kyumin Park, 16, from South Korea, and 18-year-old William Ching-Yi Wei, from Taiwan, were joint first-prize winners of the Cooper International Violin Competition in Cleveland, US.
Park (pictured) and Wei each received $10,000. The second prize of $6,000 went to Ming Liu, 18, from China. All three violinists, who performed in the concerto finals on Friday 26 July with the Cleveland Orchestra, were offered full scholarships to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, each valued at more than $175,000.
The Cooper Competition has been held annually since 2010, and alternates between violin and piano. Twenty-four violinists aged from 13 to 18 competed at this year's event.
Russian violinist Elena Tarosyan wins Kloster Schöntal competition | Latest | The Strad
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Elena Tarosyan won first prize in the senior division of the Kloster Schöntal International Violin Competition in Germany. The 20-year-old Russian (pictured), who studies at the Moscow Conservatoire with Edward Grach, received 3,000 euros. Second prize went to Olga Sroubkova from the Czech Republic. Japanese violinist Reina Shibutani took third prize.
In the intermediate division, for players aged 15 to 18, 15-year-old Yi Yang Jiang from China took first prize. Russian violinist Naina Kobzareva took second prize, and third prize went to Hui Hua, from China.
Rennosuke Fukuda, 13, from Japan, won first prize in the junior division, and also received an award of 5,000 euros to help fund his further studies. Second prize went to Jaewon Wee from South Korea, and Ziyu He, from China, took third prize.
Romanian violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea wins Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria | Latest | The Strad
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Ioana Cristina Goicea took first prize in the violin division of the Johannes Brahms International Competition in Pörtschach, Austria. The 20-year-old from Romania (pictured), who studies with Mariana Sirbu at the 'Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy' Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig, received 2,500 euros.
Second prize in the violin division went to Benjamin Marquise Gilmore from the UK. Chinese violinist Danfeng Shen won third prize.
In the cello division, South Korean Ja Kyoung Huh took the 2,500-euro first prize. Zlatomir Fung, from the US, was second, and Mon-Puo Lee, from Spain, came third.
The chamber music division was won by the Stratos Quartet, comprising Finnish pianist Pauli Jämsä, Austrian violinist Katharina Engelbrecht, Austrian violist Magdalena Eber, and Czech cellist Jan Ryska.
By Everett Evans | June 11, 2012
Xiao Wang, a 25-year-old violinist from China, has won the Texas Music Festival's Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition.
Xiao, who studies with Lucia Robert at the Manhattan School of Music, also received the Audience Choice Award at the competition on Sunday.
Seven finalists competed with solo performances for the opportunity to perform with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra on June 23 at the Moores Opera House on the University of Houston campus.
In addition to his appearance with the TMF orchestra, the winner also receives a concert date with the Leipzig Akademisches Orkester in 2013.
Robert also trained violinist Dan Zhu, who won the TMF's Young Artist Competition in 2000 and will be guest soloist for the series' concert on June 30.W
Now in its 23rd year, the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival is a month-long residency that brings together outstanding student musicians and distinguished conductors and faculty artists from around the world. Spanning 50 performances, master classes and seminars from June 4-July 1, the series is based at the UH's Moores School of Music and includes events at other venues throughout the region, including Texas A&M University in College Station.
Chinese violinist Ying Fu wins first prize at Rodolfo Lipizer competition
Friday, 21 September 2012
Chinese violinist Ying Fu, 28, won the €12,000 first prize at the Premio Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition in Gorizia, Italy. Fu, who studies with Cho-Liang Lin at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and previously studied there with the late Sergiu Luca, joined the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra in 2011.
Two South Korean violinists, 18-year-old Jaewon Kim and 20-year-old Jae Hyeong Lee, shared second prize in the competition.
Chinese violinist shares top prize at prestigious Budapest competition
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/culture/2012-09/16/c_131853131.htm
English.news.cn
2012-09-16 09:41:09
by Peter Murphy
BUDAPEST, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Wang Xiao from China and Aleksandra Kuls from Poland on Saturday performed a gala concert here after they shared the top prize at Budapest's 46th International Music Competition.
"I am very glad and excited to get the award," Wang, 25, told Xinhua after the gala concert at the Palace of Arts, which wrapped up the prestigious 10-day event.
Each year the competition focuses on a different instrument. The violin takes its turn in the spotlight every five years, and the viola was also included this year in the Jozsef Szigeti violin and viola competition.
Wang is the first Chinese violinist to win the violin competition. Born in Lanzhou, Gansu province, he began learning the instrument from his aunt, a violin teacher.
In 1997, he and his parents moved to Beijing from Xinjiang, and he was enrolled in the primary school of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. It was at that time that he decided what he wanted to do with his life, recalled Wang, who now studies in New York at the Manhattan School of Music.
Wang also won first prize at a recent music festival in Houston, where he played a Sibelius violin concerto just as during the gala concert in Budapest.
"I haven't taken part in many competitions as I do not really enjoy competing," he said after the concert. "Everyone has to conform to certain standards."
"Sometimes if you show too much personality, not every jury likes it. I, however, like to show my true feelings. I love the feeling of standing on stage though, and transmitting my feelings through the violin to the audience. Then they respond to me and have the same feeling. I hope that I can continue do this," he said.
Kuls, 21, who studies at the Academy of Music in Krakow, said the first place in the Szigeti competition was important for a violinist at the beginning of a career.
"It means it's more possible to be heard by some musicians, as well as TV and radio," she said.
Erno Kallai of Hungary came second and also won the audience prize. Kallai has spent the last six years studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
"This competition can give me opportunities to play more in Hungary now after six years away. I entered it to raise my profile in Hungary. I will stay here for a while performing, but will continue to give concerts in Europe and the US," added Kallai.
The international event drew 88 competitors in total and offered a first prize of 8,000 euros (10,400 U.S. dollars).
Chinese Violinist Wins Medal at Osaka International Music Competition - All China Women's Federation
December 27, 2012
Editor:Liu Weiguo
Chinese violinist Li Yuhe, who is currently pursuing a master's degree at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, won a bronze medal at the 13th Osaka International Music Competition held in Osaka of Japan this October, according to a report by Nouvelles D'Europe, an overseas Chinese newspaper in France.
Li, who is an alumnus of the well-known China Conservatory, comes from a musical family and has won many awards, including a gold medal at the famous Les Clés D'O competition this April.
Two violinists share top prize at Cooper International Competition | Latest | The Strad
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Kyumin Park, 16, from South Korea, and 18-year-old William Ching-Yi Wei, from Taiwan, were joint first-prize winners of the Cooper International Violin Competition in Cleveland, US.
Park (pictured) and Wei each received $10,000. The second prize of $6,000 went to Ming Liu, 18, from China. All three violinists, who performed in the concerto finals on Friday 26 July with the Cleveland Orchestra, were offered full scholarships to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, each valued at more than $175,000.
The Cooper Competition has been held annually since 2010, and alternates between violin and piano. Twenty-four violinists aged from 13 to 18 competed at this year's event.
Russian violinist Elena Tarosyan wins Kloster Schöntal competition | Latest | The Strad
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Elena Tarosyan won first prize in the senior division of the Kloster Schöntal International Violin Competition in Germany. The 20-year-old Russian (pictured), who studies at the Moscow Conservatoire with Edward Grach, received 3,000 euros. Second prize went to Olga Sroubkova from the Czech Republic. Japanese violinist Reina Shibutani took third prize.
In the intermediate division, for players aged 15 to 18, 15-year-old Yi Yang Jiang from China took first prize. Russian violinist Naina Kobzareva took second prize, and third prize went to Hui Hua, from China.
Rennosuke Fukuda, 13, from Japan, won first prize in the junior division, and also received an award of 5,000 euros to help fund his further studies. Second prize went to Jaewon Wee from South Korea, and Ziyu He, from China, took third prize.
Romanian violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea wins Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria | Latest | The Strad
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Ioana Cristina Goicea took first prize in the violin division of the Johannes Brahms International Competition in Pörtschach, Austria. The 20-year-old from Romania (pictured), who studies with Mariana Sirbu at the 'Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy' Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig, received 2,500 euros.
Second prize in the violin division went to Benjamin Marquise Gilmore from the UK. Chinese violinist Danfeng Shen won third prize.
In the cello division, South Korean Ja Kyoung Huh took the 2,500-euro first prize. Zlatomir Fung, from the US, was second, and Mon-Puo Lee, from Spain, came third.
The chamber music division was won by the Stratos Quartet, comprising Finnish pianist Pauli Jämsä, Austrian violinist Katharina Engelbrecht, Austrian violist Magdalena Eber, and Czech cellist Jan Ryska.
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shuttler
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The Piano in China: From Superstition to Superstars
The Piano in China: From Superstition to Superstars | Rhythm Planet
Posted March 20, 2012 by Tom Schnabel
I once heard that when the piano was introduced in the 19th Century in China, people were spooked: they thought there were human bones rattling around inside. A piano was definitely a foreign instrument at the time. This was also around the time that the British were making money off the opium trade, enslaving countless Chinese to the perils of addiction, and leading to the Opium Wars 1840-1860 when the Chinese revolted and tried to stop the trade.
In 1958, a 19 year-old Chinese pianist named Liu Shih Kun won the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, the most prestigious award a pianist can win. He returned to China as a national hero, and soon was performing for Chairman Mao and other top political figures. But during the Cultural Revolution that followed just a few years later, he was imprisoned for six years, forced to live on a diet of two bowls of brine with worms gathered from rotting vegetables as the only protein. Ironically, he also had to clean toilets at the Central Conservatory, the same institution that nurtured his precocious talent a decade earlier. His crime: He had shaken hands with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and played Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
How things have changed in China since those awful times. Today the piano is much in demand, with one factory manufacturing 100,000 pianos a year. A new piano can be had for $1500, a lot for most but within reach for the burgeoning urban middle class.
Today’s top pianists include the flashy Lang Lang, the sexy Yuja Wang–who wowed Hollywood Bowl audiences with her red minidress last summer–the elegant Yundi Li–who won the Chopin Prize at 18–
Credit to album covers:douban.com cdconnection.com mp3free.nl crossovermedia.net
and the eloquently and comely Xiayin Wang (no relation to Yuja). They are all formidable technically and can compete favorably with any world-class pianists. Yuja Wang has a new album, Fantasia, featuring works by Rachmaninov, Albéniz, and Chopin; Yundi Li’s new cd The Red Piano features an all-Chinese music program. Xiayin Wang has a gorgeous cd of pianist Earl Wild’s arrangements of Gershwin classics, and Lang Lang has tackled the fiendishly difficult music of his hero, Franz Liszt.
With such popularity in the once-forbidden Western instrument, there will surely be more world class pianist coming from China in the next few years. The music world is better for it.
Here’s a youtube of Yuja Wang performing the mystically beautiful music of Scriabin:
The Piano in China: From Superstition to Superstars | Rhythm Planet
Posted March 20, 2012 by Tom Schnabel
I once heard that when the piano was introduced in the 19th Century in China, people were spooked: they thought there were human bones rattling around inside. A piano was definitely a foreign instrument at the time. This was also around the time that the British were making money off the opium trade, enslaving countless Chinese to the perils of addiction, and leading to the Opium Wars 1840-1860 when the Chinese revolted and tried to stop the trade.
In 1958, a 19 year-old Chinese pianist named Liu Shih Kun won the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, the most prestigious award a pianist can win. He returned to China as a national hero, and soon was performing for Chairman Mao and other top political figures. But during the Cultural Revolution that followed just a few years later, he was imprisoned for six years, forced to live on a diet of two bowls of brine with worms gathered from rotting vegetables as the only protein. Ironically, he also had to clean toilets at the Central Conservatory, the same institution that nurtured his precocious talent a decade earlier. His crime: He had shaken hands with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and played Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
How things have changed in China since those awful times. Today the piano is much in demand, with one factory manufacturing 100,000 pianos a year. A new piano can be had for $1500, a lot for most but within reach for the burgeoning urban middle class.
Today’s top pianists include the flashy Lang Lang, the sexy Yuja Wang–who wowed Hollywood Bowl audiences with her red minidress last summer–the elegant Yundi Li–who won the Chopin Prize at 18–
Credit to album covers:douban.com cdconnection.com mp3free.nl crossovermedia.net
and the eloquently and comely Xiayin Wang (no relation to Yuja). They are all formidable technically and can compete favorably with any world-class pianists. Yuja Wang has a new album, Fantasia, featuring works by Rachmaninov, Albéniz, and Chopin; Yundi Li’s new cd The Red Piano features an all-Chinese music program. Xiayin Wang has a gorgeous cd of pianist Earl Wild’s arrangements of Gershwin classics, and Lang Lang has tackled the fiendishly difficult music of his hero, Franz Liszt.
With such popularity in the once-forbidden Western instrument, there will surely be more world class pianist coming from China in the next few years. The music world is better for it.
Here’s a youtube of Yuja Wang performing the mystically beautiful music of Scriabin:
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shuttler
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Li Yundi
Why piano-mania grips China’s children
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20131022-piano-mania-grips-china
By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
22 October 2013
In Mao’s China, pianos were destroyed as despised symbols of the bourgeoisie – but now an estimated 40m children are learning the instrument. What has changed? Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore investigates.
Music education for the masses
Keng Zhou holds a prestigious position as dean of the International Piano Academy at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. But he first learnt to play in 1973 not on a gleaming grand piano but on an instrument’s battered remains. The legs had been sawn off for fuel and its cover removed to create a makeshift table. For years in Mao’s China, Western classical music was viewed suspiciously as a tool of imperialism and the piano a despised instrument of the bourgeoisie.
Like many intellectuals of the era, Keng’s father – a pastor who was given his piano by an American – was sent to the countryside to perform back-breaking work with the peasants. When he returned to the city he wanted to bring music back into his children’s lives. “My father said it is better to learn one instrument: my sister took vocal lessons, my father took violin lessons, and I took the piano,” remembers Keng, now 51. There was just one problem: during the Cultural Revolution many Western scores had been destroyed. Unperturbed, Keng’s father borrowed some surviving sheets from a friend. “He copied them by hand – one piece took him a week to do.”
Four decades later and times have changed. Today China is experiencing piano frenzy with an estimated 40m children now learning to play. The instrument is increasingly in vogue among China’s burgeoning middle classes, who have the money to splurge on steep lessons and expensive fixtures. Spurring them on is the phenomenal success of the Chinese superstar concert pianists Lang Lang and Li Yundi, the latter of whom is currently on a 30-city sell-out tour of his homeland. Tickets for the Beijing leg were snapped up within minutes. “So many parents say: ‘I didn’t have a chance to play but my kids need to play piano,’” observes Keng. “Now it is easier for people – now you just need to be able to afford it.”
While the European market for pianos is shrinking, China’s is booming. It is now both the world’s largest piano producer and consumer, with the country accounting for 76.9% of the global piano output in 2012 alone, according to market analysts ResearchMoz. But China is not just making pianos. It is also buying them. For many owning a Steinway, the Rolls-Royce of pianos, is a status symbol. Displaying a grand piano in the living room projects not only culture and learning but also wealth: only the largest homes can accommodate them. Prices can also veer into the extreme. Last year a commemorative edition Steinway grand piano, named Charm of the Dragon, sold for 6.9m RMB ($1.1m). “I have seen show homes with grand white pianos,” says Wray Armstrong, CEO of the Beijing-based Armstrong International Music and Arts Enterprises Ltd. “It certainly looks good [but] it was strictly for show.”
Keys to success
At the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where tuition costs per year run into the tens of thousands of Renminbi, classical music wafts down the corridor on a balmy autumn evening. It is seven in the evening on a weekday but most of the practice rooms are full. Wang Ming Gang, a shy 21-year-old student, practices the piano here for up to four hours every day. With a businessman father and a mother who works in the civil service, Wang’s parents are wealthy enough to help support his dream of becoming a musician.
Originally from eastern Shandong province, Wang’s parents sent him to Shanghai because it is seen as both a financial and cultural centre. He considers himself lucky. “My friends from my hometown will not choose to study piano,” says Wang. “It is very expensive. Economic pressure is key. Another reason is that playing piano is not easy – it is not like you study two or three years and you become famous. My parents didn’t give me any pressure, this road is my own choice.”
That is not the case for Su Fan, a 25-year-old postgraduate piano student from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou who has been playing for over a decade. “My parents encouraged me to study because the piano was a dream of my mother since she was very young. But she didn’t have the chance to study,” says Su, speaking at the Conservatory. “My grandfather forced his daughter to study science. At that time people thought that by learning science you could get a good job.”
Su, who sports a gelled fringe, square hipster glasses, and a pink T-shirt, has ambitions to be a piano teacher. It is, he admits, “not a wealthy job”. But he wants to further the pursuit of the piano in China: “I want to teach more students to know the piano. To spread my musical dreams and ideas.” To facilitate this Su works part time as a teacher, where he charges students up to 300RMB ($49) for 45 minutes. Over the past seven years he has seen an explosion in the number of students he tutors: from just a couple when he started to more than 30 per week today. He now has so many he often turns them away.
Practice makes perfect?
Despite this, Su believes the piano is far from established. “Most of the students are from wealthy or middle-class families. Even though China has progressed economically, most families [still] only think about the high price of rice, the high price of social welfare,” he muses. “It needs generations of hard work. Quality development needs accumulation. It cannot happen overnight.”
“The piano might have been seen by many as a route out, as a way to college, as a way to the US, even as a way to get to Beijing from the countryside. As a way to a better place in society,” Armstrong adds. Success stories such as Lang Lang’s have proved an inspiration for pushy parents keen to add to their children’s resume. The piano prodigy learnt to play while living in relative poverty in Beijing; he grew up in a rented room, sharing a toilet and sink with five other families. Today Lang Lang has an international rock’n’roll lifestyle and has performed for dignitaries including President Obama at the White House.
In spite of its popularity other challenges for the piano persist. Scandals involving bribery and corruption have plagued some of China’s conservatories of music. Demand is also growing too fast with many less accomplished teachers unable to keep up, according to Keng. And critics of China’s teaching methods say they place too much emphasis on rote learning with little room for creativity. “The Chinese want to force their kids to practice piano,” says Keng. “It is too old a method. It needs to be more about enjoying playing the piano. For most students it will kill your hobby and kill your enjoyment.”
Still, Keng believes that classical music in China has come a long way from when he was a child learning keys on a broken piano. “I think it is a very great, very bright future. Before [parents] wanted their kids to become Lang Lang or Yundi, to become a superstar. Parents have started to change this idea. Now they want their kids to just know classical music and to have the piano accompany their whole life. I hope more and more kids can love to play from their hearts.”
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Why piano-mania grips China’s children
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20131022-piano-mania-grips-china
By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
22 October 2013
In Mao’s China, pianos were destroyed as despised symbols of the bourgeoisie – but now an estimated 40m children are learning the instrument. What has changed? Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore investigates.
Music education for the masses
Keng Zhou holds a prestigious position as dean of the International Piano Academy at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. But he first learnt to play in 1973 not on a gleaming grand piano but on an instrument’s battered remains. The legs had been sawn off for fuel and its cover removed to create a makeshift table. For years in Mao’s China, Western classical music was viewed suspiciously as a tool of imperialism and the piano a despised instrument of the bourgeoisie.
Like many intellectuals of the era, Keng’s father – a pastor who was given his piano by an American – was sent to the countryside to perform back-breaking work with the peasants. When he returned to the city he wanted to bring music back into his children’s lives. “My father said it is better to learn one instrument: my sister took vocal lessons, my father took violin lessons, and I took the piano,” remembers Keng, now 51. There was just one problem: during the Cultural Revolution many Western scores had been destroyed. Unperturbed, Keng’s father borrowed some surviving sheets from a friend. “He copied them by hand – one piece took him a week to do.”
Four decades later and times have changed. Today China is experiencing piano frenzy with an estimated 40m children now learning to play. The instrument is increasingly in vogue among China’s burgeoning middle classes, who have the money to splurge on steep lessons and expensive fixtures. Spurring them on is the phenomenal success of the Chinese superstar concert pianists Lang Lang and Li Yundi, the latter of whom is currently on a 30-city sell-out tour of his homeland. Tickets for the Beijing leg were snapped up within minutes. “So many parents say: ‘I didn’t have a chance to play but my kids need to play piano,’” observes Keng. “Now it is easier for people – now you just need to be able to afford it.”
While the European market for pianos is shrinking, China’s is booming. It is now both the world’s largest piano producer and consumer, with the country accounting for 76.9% of the global piano output in 2012 alone, according to market analysts ResearchMoz. But China is not just making pianos. It is also buying them. For many owning a Steinway, the Rolls-Royce of pianos, is a status symbol. Displaying a grand piano in the living room projects not only culture and learning but also wealth: only the largest homes can accommodate them. Prices can also veer into the extreme. Last year a commemorative edition Steinway grand piano, named Charm of the Dragon, sold for 6.9m RMB ($1.1m). “I have seen show homes with grand white pianos,” says Wray Armstrong, CEO of the Beijing-based Armstrong International Music and Arts Enterprises Ltd. “It certainly looks good [but] it was strictly for show.”
Keys to success
At the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where tuition costs per year run into the tens of thousands of Renminbi, classical music wafts down the corridor on a balmy autumn evening. It is seven in the evening on a weekday but most of the practice rooms are full. Wang Ming Gang, a shy 21-year-old student, practices the piano here for up to four hours every day. With a businessman father and a mother who works in the civil service, Wang’s parents are wealthy enough to help support his dream of becoming a musician.
Originally from eastern Shandong province, Wang’s parents sent him to Shanghai because it is seen as both a financial and cultural centre. He considers himself lucky. “My friends from my hometown will not choose to study piano,” says Wang. “It is very expensive. Economic pressure is key. Another reason is that playing piano is not easy – it is not like you study two or three years and you become famous. My parents didn’t give me any pressure, this road is my own choice.”
That is not the case for Su Fan, a 25-year-old postgraduate piano student from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou who has been playing for over a decade. “My parents encouraged me to study because the piano was a dream of my mother since she was very young. But she didn’t have the chance to study,” says Su, speaking at the Conservatory. “My grandfather forced his daughter to study science. At that time people thought that by learning science you could get a good job.”
Su, who sports a gelled fringe, square hipster glasses, and a pink T-shirt, has ambitions to be a piano teacher. It is, he admits, “not a wealthy job”. But he wants to further the pursuit of the piano in China: “I want to teach more students to know the piano. To spread my musical dreams and ideas.” To facilitate this Su works part time as a teacher, where he charges students up to 300RMB ($49) for 45 minutes. Over the past seven years he has seen an explosion in the number of students he tutors: from just a couple when he started to more than 30 per week today. He now has so many he often turns them away.
Practice makes perfect?
Despite this, Su believes the piano is far from established. “Most of the students are from wealthy or middle-class families. Even though China has progressed economically, most families [still] only think about the high price of rice, the high price of social welfare,” he muses. “It needs generations of hard work. Quality development needs accumulation. It cannot happen overnight.”
“The piano might have been seen by many as a route out, as a way to college, as a way to the US, even as a way to get to Beijing from the countryside. As a way to a better place in society,” Armstrong adds. Success stories such as Lang Lang’s have proved an inspiration for pushy parents keen to add to their children’s resume. The piano prodigy learnt to play while living in relative poverty in Beijing; he grew up in a rented room, sharing a toilet and sink with five other families. Today Lang Lang has an international rock’n’roll lifestyle and has performed for dignitaries including President Obama at the White House.
In spite of its popularity other challenges for the piano persist. Scandals involving bribery and corruption have plagued some of China’s conservatories of music. Demand is also growing too fast with many less accomplished teachers unable to keep up, according to Keng. And critics of China’s teaching methods say they place too much emphasis on rote learning with little room for creativity. “The Chinese want to force their kids to practice piano,” says Keng. “It is too old a method. It needs to be more about enjoying playing the piano. For most students it will kill your hobby and kill your enjoyment.”
Still, Keng believes that classical music in China has come a long way from when he was a child learning keys on a broken piano. “I think it is a very great, very bright future. Before [parents] wanted their kids to become Lang Lang or Yundi, to become a superstar. Parents have started to change this idea. Now they want their kids to just know classical music and to have the piano accompany their whole life. I hope more and more kids can love to play from their hearts.”
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