Years ago, classical music generally traveled from the West to the rest of the world. Now China is reversing the exchange, not just by performing Western classical music in China but by exporting it.
Next month, the New York’s David Geffen Hall will welcome a visiting orchestra, but the guest orchestra is not the Berlin Philharmonic or one of Europe’s other esteemed ensembles. It is the China Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO)!
Led by Chief Conductor Long Yu, the CPO, which was founded in Beijing 16 years ago, is on a west tour including other top venues in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The CPO is not the only Chinese ensemble that has performances in the West this year. The China National Opera House had a performance in the Budapest Spring Festival while the Shanghai Opera performed at London’s Coliseum.
“We have many good classical music groups in China, but people abroad don’t know about them,” says Jiatong Wu, who has organized many of these tours. “We’re trying to change that.”
Mr. Wu, who co-founded Wu Promotion in 1991, has become an accelerator of China’s growing classical-music exports. He arranged tours of the CPO, Macao Orchestra, and Beijing Symphony Orchestra.
Fifty years after Mao’s Cultural Revolution in effect banned western music, a real cultural revolution is taking place. The government is now setting up opera houses, concert halls, and symphony orchestras at speed.
Jindong Cai of Stanford University, who conducts in both China and the United States, describes this revolution in soft-power terms: “A product manufactured in China is not as important for China’s international profile. Cultural power is much more important.”
What’s left for us to see is if the Chinese government and promoters like Mr. Wu can manage to achieve on classical music what China’s factories have accomplished in manufacturing—beat the West at its own game.