Orchestra's European tour highlights traditional Chinese music for appreciative Western audiences

Chinese conductor Hong Xia had her most memorable birthday in January last year when she led the Chinese Traditional Orchestra of the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater in performances at the KKL in Lucerne, Switzerland, during the orchestra's European tour.

At the end of rehearsals, Wu Jiatong, CEO of Wu Promotion, the private promoter in China that organized the 2016 tour, stepped onto the stage with cake and flowers, wishing Hong a happy birthday and congratulating the orchestra.

"I totally forgot my birthday," Hong recalls. "When Wu walked to me, I thought he was going to give a short speech. I was really surprised."

What made Hong even more excited was that the KKL - or Culture and Convention Centre Lucerne - was the same venue where the late conductor Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) gave his final concerts.

"Abbado was one of my favorite conductors in the world, and I was honored to perform there," says Hong, a 1982 graduate of Shenyang Conservatory of Music.

The concert turned out to be a great success, with a full house of more than 2,000 giving the orchestra a lengthy ovation.

On Jan 27, Hong will lead the musicians in a performance at the KKL, again as part of a new European tour, which will kick off on Jan 16 in Budapest, Hungary. After KKL, they will travel to Erl, Austria, on Jan 29.

"I thought the main audience for a traditional Chinese folk music concert would be overseas Chinese. I didn't expect that the majority of the audience would be Westerners," she says. "Their warm feedback was very encouraging, and we are looking forward to our upcoming shows."

The 2017 program will feature well-known music pieces, including The Great Wall Capriccio (Erhu Concerto) by Chinese composer Liu Wenjin (1937-2013), and Lingering Snow on The Broken Bridge, composed by Liu Xijin, in which a solo flutist performs with the folk orchestra.

The orchestra is one of four national Chinese folk music orchestras that will tour abroad during the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival period, with the support of Wu Promotion.

Titled the Grand Chinese New Year Concert, the tour will involve more than 300 Chinese musicians from the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater, the Guangdong National Orchestra of China, the Zhejiang Traditional Orchestra and the Shaanxi Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra. They will visit 27 cities in 14 countries, including Kazakhstan, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Finland and the United Kingdom.

According to Wu, each performance will open with an introduction showing the uniqueness of traditional Chinese instruments. The idea is to enable Western audiences to better understand the music.

"The Grand Chinese New Year Concert is our oldest brand. It will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year," says Wu, who founded Wu Promotion with his father in 1991. The company currently produces more than 500 concerts and events annually in China and abroad. The company recently wrapped up a Cuba tour by the China Philharmonic Orchestra, which featured performances on Dec 15 and 16.

Besides the Grand Chinese New Year Concert, one of the best-known projects is the annual Peking Opera Festival, which celebrated its eighth year in the Darwin Entertainment Centre, Australia, from Nov 29 to Dec 1.

Wu recalls the first concert in the Vienna Musikverein in 1998 with the orchestra under the baton of conductor Chen Xieyang.

"Tickets sold out, and even the stairs in the venue were occupied by audience members. That was an unexpected success. Since then, we've made the Grand Chinese New Year Concert an annual event to display our traditional folk music to foreign audiences," says Wu, who was born in Beijing and pursued his music studies in Austria.

So far, the grand concert has attracted about 300,000 concertgoers in some 20 countries. Presenting music with such instruments as the horse-headed fiddle from Inner Mongolia, as well as Cantonese melodies from the gaohu (a string instrument played with a bow), 13 Chinese folk music orchestras have performed as part of the project.

The tour has stopped in Switzerland most frequently.

In 2006, Wu Promotion brought China Traditional Orchestra Zhejiang to perform at the KKL in Lucerne under the baton of conductor Zhang Guoyong. It also visited five German cities and then went to Vienna, Amsterdam, Alexandria and Cairo.

Wu says Swiss Television provided six hours of coverage for the event, including broadcasting the concert and presenting documentaries about traditional Chinese musicians and their instruments.

More than 2,000 people saw the show in person, and even more were exposed via television to the great variety of sounds and musical instruments less known in the Western world.

Since then, Wu Promotion has brought many Chinese orchestras and art troupes to perform in Switzerland.

The company has also brought Swiss art troupes to China, including the Grand Theatre de Geneve Ballet Company, which toured China in April

Wu Promotion has a three-year plan to bring the established Lucerne Festival to Shanghai from 2018 to 2020. The festival is a summer music event held annually in Switzerland. Founded in 1938, it is known for presenting famous orchestras, legendary conductors and celebrated soloists.

During the 7th Peking Opera Festival, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, last year, the president of Grand Theater de Geneva, Tobias Richter, discussed with Wu the idea of moving Opera des Nations to China after June 2018.

Grand Theater de Geneva, built in 1876, is the largest opera house in the French-speaking area of Switzerland. Due to renovations that have been in progress for more than two years, a large wood-construction theater was purchased from France for temporary use.

The temporary theater, which served as a venue for La Comedie-Francaise during its own renovation, was resettled in Geneva. The structure was expanded and revived under the name of Opera de Nations.

The city of Geneva has agreed to gift the structure to China as a token of friendship in the long history of close ties between China and Geneva.

"This will be a historic event for both China and Switzerland, and it will serve as a cultural bond between the two countries," says Wu.

"I fully support this transfer of the Theatre des Nations from Geneva to Beijing, two cities already linked by a thriving partnership. It would represent one more excellent opportunity to increase and further deepen the relations between our two countries," says Jean-Jacques de Dardel, Swiss ambassador to China.

"This gift from Switzerland to China will allow many Swiss artists, musicians, orchestras, and dancers to perform for the Chinese public and strengthen the cultural ties between our two people in a structure representing the best in sustainable building methods. The fact that this theater could be rebuilt in Beijing, the capital city, is also a symbolic gesture illustrating the long lasting Sino-Swiss political relations."

chennan@chinadaily.com.cn