Chinese music is gaining international recognition around the world. Some leading companies such as the National Ballet of China, the National Peking Opera Company and the China Philharmonic Orchestra have all been applauded for promoting different genres of Chinese music.
One of the famous Chinese musicians abroad, Cellist Wang Jian said in a report that, “I feel very lucky that I’m able to share my music with other people.” His engaging performance for Isaac Stern in the final segment of the Oscar-winning film From Mao to Mozart at age 10 turned out to be the first step toward his future concert career.
Like Japan and Korea in earlier decades, China has already changed classical music’s global demographics. Inspired by a growing number of international figures like Tan Dun and Yundi Li, China’s 80 million music students have set out to conquer the world, but their biggest revolution will surely be at home.
Music exchanges with the outside world are one of the important cultural exchanges of China. For a long time, Chinese musicians have been vigorously inheriting and developing their traditional folk music, as well as introducing healthy and enlightening music art from abroad to enrich the Chinese music. As early as 1930s, two famous Chinese musicians and educationists Xiao Youmei and Huang Zi went to Europe and the U.S. to study the expression forms of western music. Later they came back home to promote the teaching system of western music in the schools which they were pioneers. Besides, they invited a batch of foreign professionals to give instructions in China to cultivate Chinese musical talents.
Music continues to play an important part in China’s cultural exchanges with the outside world as an important form of art. On the one hand, foreign music educationists have been introduced to China and students have been sent to study abroad to cultivate music talents quickly; on the other hand, many music groups and musicians from the Soviet Union, East Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America were invited to perform in China, enabling a widespread of excellent foreign songs, especially the revolutionary songs from the Soviet Union.
China had sent some music groups and musicians to perform in the Soviet Union, East Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America and exchange learning with musicians in other countries, which enhanced the understanding and friendship between the Chinese and foreign musicians. Guo Lanying and Wang Kun were among the first group of distinguished Chinese artists who went abroad and took part in music exchange activities.
For over 40 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the development of music art in China has indirectly experienced different stages, including the stable development in 1950s, the devastation during the Cultural Revolution, and the unprecedented prosperity after the reform and opening-up.
Chinese music is so rich and is played using some beautiful instruments like the bamboo, flutes and others. Instrumental pieces played on an erhu or dizi are popular, and are often available outside of China, but the pipa and zheng music, which are more traditional, are more popular in China itself.
Many concerts are being organized for Chinese singers abroad nowadays.
The Ministry of Culture in China has awarded about 225 projects to some 211 companies working in the cultural domains. Local cultural sectors also have strived to facilitate the implementation of the “Chinese Culture Going International” strategy.
According to China daily, the Beijing-based China Heaven Creation International Performing Arts Company purchased the White House Theater in Branson last December, a small town in the US Midwest and a popular destination for American vacationers. The site is used for the promotion of China’s culture in general.