The bugle's call

The US Army Band and the Military Band of the People's Liberation Army are set to create history with a joint performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Diyingu, Senior Colonel Yu Hai says, as he stamps his foot twice on the conductor's podium in the Brucker Hall at Fort Myer in Virginia, where the United States Army Band "Pershing's Own" is based. "Bass drum, POWER," its interpretation by Sergeant Joel Ayau from the US army, follows.

Waving a baton, Yu, commander and conductor of the Military Band of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), is conducting members of his band and their counterparts from the US Army Band in a rehearsal of Chinese pieces.

On Monday night, the two military bands will make history by premiering their joint performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The two bands will also travel to Philadelphia and New York, sitting side-by-side in concert halls in the two cities for another three performances.

The program lists one Chinese piece, Chao Tian Que, by Chen Dan, and one American piece, The Cowboys, by John Williams, but encores are expected. The band each will also play several pieces from their own repertoire.

At the rehearsal, Yu's prompts are few and far between. He gives a number of thumbs-up and ends with the remark, "well-done!"

Colonel Thomas Rotondi Jr, commander and conductor of the US Army Band, has the same easy time as he goes over the two American pieces.

"It is easy when great musicians work together," Rotondi tells both the Chinese and American band members.

Entitled Friendship and Cooperation Through Music, the joint performance has been hailed as a breakthrough as the PLA Military Band makes its maiden official trip to the United States.

"This is the first time that our two military bands can officially swap ideas and work together, while before we shared our views as friends," Yu says.

For Rotondi, the joint performance is a culmination of a 10-year friendship between him and Senior Colonel Yu.

Rotondi, then commander of the United States Army Band Europe, first met the PLA Military Band and Yu at a marching tattoo in Bremen, Germany, in 2001.

"We just kind of gravitated toward each other. That's when our friendship started," he tells China Daily in an exclusive interview after the rehearsal.

They later met at music conferences and took the opportunity to "exchange some great music ideas again", Rotondi says. Yu also invited Rotondi to Beijing to conduct the Chinese military band in 2004.

"To get an opportunity to have his band come here where we can perform jointly is something that I always had in mind since our first meeting," Rotondi adds.

"What is really important about this exchange is that we exchange music from different cultures. That is the most important thing. By exchanging music from different countries, we get to understand different cultures better," he says.

The exchange goes both ways, as his band has received a reciprocal invitation to visit China in October on a performing tour, Rotondi says.

He says he has also noticed that the Chinese military band has been making great progress in the past 10 years.

"The level of musicianship has increased substantially," he says, crediting the band's achievement to Senior Colonel Yu.

China's reform and opening-up has opened up opportunities for Chinese band musicians to change their views about brass bands. "For a long time, we believed that brass bands play only marches and ceremonial music," Yu tells China Daily.

Yu, who made his first trip abroad to meet with military bands and their musicians in 1993, instantly became aware of the rich musical expressions, and the variety of musical pieces and techniques that went far beyond what he had learned at home.

Today, the Chinese military band has expanded its repertoire to include symphonic music as well as Chinese pieces with strong classical music idioms, Yu says.

During this trip, he and other members of the Chinese military band will have a chance to learn more from their American colleagues, Yu says.

Video: Sun Peng
Camera and text: Li Xing
Subtitle: Jin Lu
Producer: Flora Yue

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