ALLENDALE ON HUDSON- The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music announces the sixth season of the China Now Music Festival, from October 2 to 8, 2023. The festival’s major concerts will take place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College and at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The China Now Music Festival is dedicated to promoting an understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. In the previous five seasons, China Now has attracted more than 10,000 live audience members, and nearly 100,000 viewers have participated in online programs. The sixth annual festival will focus on the theme The Bridge of Music, with an unprecedented series of uniquely curated events that will trace how generations of musicians and music organizations from the US and China have worked together and inspired each other through music exchange.
“Music is both the common wealth of human civilization and the unique creation of individual cultures and peoples,” said Jindong Cai, the artistic director of the China Now Music Festival. “It is a bringer of hope and joy, and a bridge to understanding. I hope that this year’s China Now Music Festival will bring you this hope, joy, and understanding.”
The first concert program, “Bard East/West Ensemble and Special Guest Wu Man,” presents new arrangements of music by Tan Dun and Zhou Long, as well as several new works by outstanding young composers from China, including Tian Tian and Yao Chen, faculty members at the Central Conservatory of Music. It will be held on October 2, 2023, at the Bard Conservatory in Annandale-on-Hudson, and on October 4, 2023, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. The ensemble combines Chinese and Western instruments together as a new model of cross-cultural performance, consisting of a Western string quintet and seven Chinese instruments including dizi, erhu, pipa, ruan, suona, and guzheng, as well as Chinese and Western percussion. The program features renowned pipa virtuoso Wu Man performing “King Chu Doffs His Armour” by the Pulitzer Prize winner composer Zhou Long and based on the famous love story portrayed in the 1993 film Farewell My Concubine. It also includes Tan Dun’s Northwest Suite, a collection from his dance score “The Yellow Earth,” which blends traditional Chinese elements with contemporary concepts.
The second program, “The Orchestra Now (TŌN) Celebrates the Music of Chen Yi and Zhou Long,” on October 6, 2023, at Bard’s Fisher Center and October 8, 2023, at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center, will pay tribute to the extraordinary Chinese-American composers, along with works by their mentor and teacher, Chou Wen-Chung, and two of their acclaimed students, Zhou Juan and Li Shaosheng. Chen Yi and Zhou Long, two remarkable composers now in their 70s, had studied at Columbia University in the 1980s under composer Chou Wen-Chung, whose compositions reflected his deep connection to both Eastern and Western traditions. Chen Yi and Zhou Long were greatly influenced by their mentor’s fascination for exploring the intersection of different musical cultures, and over the decades of their storied careers in America, both have blended their cultural heritage with contemporary compositional techniques, resulting in a unique and captivating musical language. Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 3, My Musical Journey to America, was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra for its centennial season and premiered by the SSO at Benaroya Hall on March 18, 2004, conducted by Gerard Schwarz. Zhou Long composed Beijing Rhyme in 2012 and it was commissioned by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, first performed and recorded in September 2012 in Beijing, conducted by Tan Lihua.
The third program, “US-China Music Forum – Confronting Challenges and Looking to the Future,” on October 7, 2023, at Asia Society in New York City, will present an afternoon of engaging discussion and live music with a distinguished panel of musicians and leaders in the world of classical music performance and education, providing diverse perspectives on the future of US-China relations in music. The panel speakers will include Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and artistic director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN); composer Chen Yi, Lorena Searcy Cravens/ Millsap/ Missouri Distinguished Professor of Composition at University of Missouri, Kansas City; Gary Ginstling, president and CEO of the New York Philharmonic; and Yu Hongmei, chairwoman of the University Council of the Central Conservatory of Music, China. The panel will be moderated by Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society, and Jindong Cai, director of the US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. The forum will also feature live music performances by pipa virtuoso Liu Xiaojing from the Central Conservatory of Music, China, and members of the Bard East/West Ensemble.
EVENT DETAILS AND TICKETING
Program I: Bard East/West Ensemble and Special Guest Wu Man
Monday, October 2, 2023, at 8:00 p.m.
László Z. Bitó ‘60 Conservatory Building, Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Free and open to the public.
Wednesday, October 4, 2023, at 7:00 p.m.
(Pre-concert talk at 6:15 p.m.)
Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
The Shops at Columbus Circle, New York, NY
For tickets, visit: https://ticketing.jazz.org/
Program II: The Orchestra Now (TŌN) Celebrates the Music of Chen Yi and Zhou Long
Friday, October 6, 2023, at 7:00 p.m.
(Q&A with the composers at 6:00 p.m.)
Sosnoff Theater, Fisher Center at Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
For tickets, visit: https://tickets.fishercenter.
Sunday, October 8, 2023, at 3:00 p.m.
(Q&A with the composers at 2:15 p.m.)
Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
The Shops at Columbus Circle, New York, NY
For tickets, visit: https://ticketing.jazz.org/
Program III: US-China Music Forum – Confronting Challenges and Looking to the Future
Saturday, October 7, 2023, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Lila Acheson Wallace Auditorium
Asia Society of New York
725 Park Avenue, New York, NY
For tickets, visit: https://asiasociety.org/
For more information about the China Now Music Festival and for full programming details, please visit barduschinamusic.org/the-
