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This Opening Concert pays tribute to the pioneers of Chinese musical modernism and the century-old heritage of music in Beijing. In 1922, the founding of the Peking University Music Training Institute assembled the most forward-thinking personalities of the time. If we have to find commonalities among them, their works stand at the nexus of Chinese and Western music, which in turn motivated a century’s steady progress of Chinese composition. The Music Training Institute was the first professional educational organization modeled after the West, a pioneer in China before the founding of the country’s music conservatories that nurtured a generation of noted educators. Xiao Youmei, who was among the Institute’s founders, later became the inaugural President of the National Conservatory of Music (precursor of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music). More than half a century later and among the new generation of composers, Qigang Chen wrote his cello concerto Reflet d’un temps disparu, a work inspired by and building upon the ancient tune Three Variations on Plum Blossom, also reflecting on memories and reverie. This work is a true exemplar of Chen’s unique compositional technique, deeply rooted in Chinese traditional culture and a solid training in music theory and contemporary composition,first at the Central Conservatory of Music and later in Paris under the tutelage of Olivier Messiaen. The work can trace spiritual lineage from China’s elder musical statemen.
Let us look back to the early 20th century. In 1927, Liu Tianhua, then 32 and dreaming to reform Chinese music, composed Improvement Exercise, a true amalgam of Western and Chinese elements. Grounded in both Chinese traditional music and the Western canon, he established a strong foundation for the modernization of Chinese traditional music. In this concert, contemporary composer Zou Ye offers Hearing Liu Tianhua, a concerto for orchestra combining the China Philharmonic Orchestra and Beijing Chinese Orchestra in equal footing, casting some of Liu’s iconic themes in an innovative structure that is new yet traces a strong heritage. Could this be a future that Liu (who died at the age of 37) had dreamt of? The program includes four songs by Xiao Youmei and Yuen Ren Chao, both key figures in the Peking University Music Training Institute and major contributors to China’s musical development. Homage to Liu Tianhua is a co-commission of the BMF and the Beijing
Chinese Orchestra. This world premiere performance will surely enrich the advocacy of Chinese musical esthetics that is one of the BMF’s key missions.

Track:
Qigang Chen: Reflet d'un temps disparu, for cello and orchestra
Xiao Youmei: Questions (Weizhai Yi，lyricist)
Yuen Ren Chao: Hearing the Rain (Bannong Liu，lyricist)
Yuen Ren Chao: Flowers in a Vase (Chenda Fan, Hu Shih，lyricists )
Yuen Ren Chao : How I Miss Her Not (Bannong Liu，lyricist )
（Zou Ye，arr.）

—Intermission—

Zou Ye: Hearing Liu Tianhua, a Concerto for Orchestra composed
for Chinese Orchestra and Symphonic Orchestra
(Themes from Liu Tianhua's solo works for Erhu and Pipa)
I. Improvement Exercise, in sonata form, allegro
II. Joyful Night, andante cantabile
III. Marching on a Bright Road, in sonata rondo form

Artist/Group:
Mo Mo, cello
Zhang Liping, soprano
China Philharmonic Orchestra & Beijing Chinese Orchestra
Yang Yang, conductor
Qigang Chen, Zou Ye, composers
Co-commission by : Beijing Music Festival & Beijing Chinese Orchestra