Future collaboration

The other collaboration is through teaching itself. For example, the NCPA Orchestra members do not just share their music-learning experience with students of the Tianjin Juilliard School, but also teach them how to be a professional musician in China and tell them how the audition process works.

"This collaboration marks a major milestone in the NCPA Orchestra's chamber music series and will kick off future collaboration between the two prestigious performing arts organizations," says Ren Xiaolong, general manager of the orchestra, adding that when the pandemic is over, students and faculty members of the Juilliard School in New York will come to the NCPA for more cultural exchange programs.

Founded in 1905, the New York-based Juilliard School has trained some of the world's best artists, including Van Cliburn, Renee Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma. The school has enrolled students from China since the 1920s.

The Juilliard Orchestra's first tour in China took place in 1987 by visiting six Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, led by the school's president, Joseph W. Polisi. In 2008, it returned with another China tour, including a concert collaborating with students and faculty members of the Central Conservatory of Music at the NCPA.

Polisi, a bassoon player, took his position at the Juilliard in 1984, became President Emeritus, Chief China Officer at Juilliard in 2018. As the school's sixth and longest-serving president, he had fulfilled his vision of global expansion by launching the Tianjin Juilliard School.

The deal for the new Tianjin campus was announced by Polisi when China's first lady, Peng Liyuan, visited the Juilliard School in New York on Sept 28, 2015, while accompanying President Xi Jinping on his state visit to the US.

"We've seen the growth and evolution of the Tianjin Juilliard School, which is very exciting and interesting since many of us working with the school have a long history with China, either musicians born in China pursuing studies and careers in the US and now returning to China, or people like me and composer Athens, who were born in the US and (are now) creating our own roots in China," says Brose.

He adds that from the moment they began planning the Tianjin Juilliard School, they always had a clear vision-to take root in China and develop the school into an international hub for musical education in China and Asia.

"Roots grow in really good soil. China has done incredible cultivation of its classical music soil over the last 40 years. The soil has been enriched with incredible attention and devotion to Western classical arts," Brose says.

"Here, we want to train and develop the next great musicians, to create 'artist citizens'-a term by Polisi, referring to musicians who not only perform onstage inside concert halls but also go into the communities, to communicate, to bond with the communities through their music. We are also here to serve as a cultural bridge."