Maestro fulfilling dream of homeland

Muhai Tang directing the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra in November. Provided to China Daily

During the 2014-15 season at La Scala opera house in Milan, a Chinese-born conductor won over the pickiest of audiences with his precise pacing and incredible vigor while interpreting Rossini's Otello. Now, the first Chinese-born conductor to have conducted opera at the mecca of opera houses is pouring his passion for classical music into his homeland.

The Milan performance has not been the only highlight for Muhai Tang, 66, who built an overseas career over more than three decades. In 1983, at age 34, he became the first Chinese to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He later became a naturalized German citizen.

He began his tutelage under world famous maestros like Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa after von Karajan invited him to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic. Prior to that, he had studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. His electrifying work in Berlin led to repeat appearances and also invitations from many of the world's leading orchestras.

He made recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Virgin, Decca and Teldec recording companies. The Guitar Concertos by Tan Dun and Christopher Rouse with Sharon Isbin and the Gulbenkian Orchestra, for Teldec, was awarded a Grammy in 2002.

Recruited by the state-level 1,000 Talent Plan, which aims to attract leading overseas returnees to benefit China's development, Tang has served as music director at Tianjin Symphony Orchestra since 2012. He also has been named "conductor laureate" of the China National Symphony Orchestra. The new roles have refocused his efforts on training and performances within China, to which he has brought bold creativity.

One example is the Integral Symphony of Mahler and Beethoven series he initiated in January 2015. The idea is to perform all the symphonies written by Gustav Mahler, the prominent Austrian composer of the late Romantic era, and fabled German composer Ludwig van Beethoven in 11 concerts for Chinese audiences within two years. Mahler and Beethoven together? Nobody had combined what might be considered two poles of Western classical music.

The Mahler and Beethoven series is risky but not rash. Tang and the musicians of Tianjin Symphony Orchestra have rearranged different movements of the two composers using their music's inner logic.

"I want to use Beethoven's Ode to Joy to invoke Mahler's tragic world and to activate the lost soul," Tang says. "Chinese audiences are beyond my expectations. They are more cultured and more tolerant than I had imagined before I came back to China."