NCPA Orchestra preps for 1st North American tour

The NCPA Orchestra presents a hundred concerts a year, mostly with renowned artists. It was the first in China to have resident musicians. The average age of its members is 30. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The Chinese musicians will also give some minor concerts for local communities, schools and museums in Philadelphia on Nov 7. The city will call it "NCPA Day".

In the tour, the NCPA Orchestra will play a West-meets-East program including Chinese composer Chen Qigang's challenging Wu Xing (The Five Elements) Suite for orchestra.

Chen says he has heard many European and US orchestras perform the piece earlier. "Technically, they are great, but very few can play out the cultural implications inside the music. It also challenges audiences because it has no melody," says the composer, who wrote the theme song You and Me for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

"We are not touring for the sake of touring," says Ren. "Music reflects life, social and cultural conditions. Our orchestra is composed of young musicians and it makes a new sound that gives people an idea of Chinese contemporary culture."

China has some 60 orchestras and each survives in different ways. Only a few leading orchestras have solid government funding and can run respectable seasons. Most orchestras have to travel a lot to play hundreds of low-end concerts and bargain for performance fees.

"One player who quit his job with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra to join us said he left because he was tired of playing The Blue Danube 20 times in a month," says Ren.

"The NCPA Orchestra is somehow privileged. We don't struggle for a living. We have professional management, some 100 concerts a year and mostly with world renowned artists," says Zhang Lin, assistant managing director of the orchestra.

The 33-year-old received 14 years of training in bassoon at the Central Conservatory of Music and worked in the faculty and played at the Conservatory's orchestra for another three years. He joined the NCPA in 2007, when he read in newspapers that the "bubble" was recruiting "professional musicians" to manage the theater.

"NCPA's slogan is 'art changes life'," says Zhang. "Every night, when I hear the applause and see people walk out with appreciation on their faces and talking about the music with each other excitedly, I really feel satisfied."

Audiences become different from what they were before the concert, he adds.