Music from fiddles fit for an emperor

About this time, Zhu, Ci, and the cellist Lyu, 25, learned that the Tianjin Juilliard School, the first overseas campus of the New York-based performing arts conservatory, included a major in chamber of music in its graduate program. So the three decided to apply to enroll in the program, which offers a full scholarship.

With the support of another violinist, Weigang Li, a member of the Shanghai Quartet, they found their last member violist Liu, 25 and received online training during the pandemic.

They are now studying with members of the Shanghai Quartet at Tianjin Juilliard School. In November 2019 members of the Shanghai Quartet, Weigang Li, Angelo Xiang Yu, both violinists, Honggang Li, a violist, and Nicholas Tzavaras, a cellist, joined the faculty of Tianjin Juilliard School.

They named the quartet Mila, after mi and la in a musical scale. The two notes are also called perfect fourth, a traditional musical term representing a unique relationship between two pitches.

"We all have the experience of playing chamber music since it's part of our education in college. But it's quite different from playing as a full-time string quartet," Zhu says. "Each member has their own personality, which allows us to be harmonic and balanced in our musical interpretation."

The violinist Ci, who received his master's degree in Violin Performance from Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute and his bachelor's degree from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, says: "When we perform as a string quartet at Tianjin Juilliard School, it means that we take our classes in the morning and do rehearsals in the afternoon. We spend lots of time together, which allows us to explore our sounds."

The violist Liu, who received her master's degree in Viola Performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and holds a bachelor's degree from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, says: "Chamber music allows audiences to experience classical close up, and it's a great way for them to learn about a composer."

Liu recalls a story about her early experience with chamber music, when she was a student of the Sichuan Conservatory of Music aged 17 and she attended a Shanghai Quartet concert.

The quartet was formed by Honggang Li and his brother, Weigang Li in 1983. The following year it won second prize at the Portsmouth International Quartet Competition in England. It made its debut in New York in 1987.

"The concert hall was packed and it seemed that all the school's teachers and students were there," Liu says. "After the performance I was totally overwhelmed. The music just kept on vibrating in that room and lingered in my head."

Weigang Li, a violinist, says the quartet long nursed a wish to let people know about its experience and what it has learned as a string quartet over more than 30 years.

"We toured abroad in the 1990s, and there was little opportunity for us to perform in China. Then, in 2009, the Shanghai Quartet became a resident string quartet of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and that gave us more opportunity to perform for Chinese audiences."