2024 The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Guangdong) International Youth Music Week (youth music culture the greater bay area, abbreviated as "ymcg") officially kicked off in Guangzhou recently. On January 29, Daniel Harding and his team of mentors, together with young musicians, appeared at multiple cultural and tourist landmarks in the Greater Bay Area.
Going out of the concert hall and into the streets, integrating music into the colorful urban life and accompanying the human fireworks within reach, is one of the traditions and mission of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Guangdong) International Youth Music Week.
Looking back on the past, the music week’s outreach footprints once spread to different cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The scenes were very different, including the automobile factory in Foshan and the scenic spots and historic sites in Guangzhou; musicians once sang with middle school students playing the piano under the banyan tree. I also talked about the past and the present in front of the Wuyang statue. The 2024 Music Week will once again play heart-warming music on the city stage in the Greater Bay Area, taking the vertical and horizontal aspects of culture and history as its latitude and longitude.
Cantonese Opera Stage - A clarion call for the general public. Photographed by Li Lewei
The Cantonese Opera Art Museum on Enning Road is the first stop of this year’s outreach. Xiguan, where it is located, was once a gathering place for Cantonese opera activities and a gathering place for famous Cantonese opera actors. Choosing the Cantonese Opera Art Museum as the first stop for the outreach also had special cultural considerations.
On October 2, 2009, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao jointly applied for Cantonese opera to be listed on the UNESCO Representative List of Human Intangible Cultural Heritage. The joint application of Cantonese Opera to the World Heritage List is a successful cooperation in the art field in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. This not only reflects the success of the cultural cooperation mechanism in the Greater Bay Area, but also demonstrates the common sentiments and cultural connections between the people of the Bay Area. Young people and Music Week instructors from the 2024 Music Week visited the Cantonese Opera Museum and had in-depth contact with Guangdong traditional opera culture, which in itself was a rare cultural exchange between China and the West.
Cantonese Opera Museum-Royal Fireworks and Music Photographed by Li Lewei
The Guangfu Terrace by the Wansha Lake in the center of the museum is where this unique concert was held. In 2020, Yo-Yo Ma once played Bach's unaccompanied cello suites at Guangfu Terrace, with one person and one piano, and thousands of dragons singing. After four years, musicians from the Music Week returned to Guangfu Terrace to create a contemporary dialogue across time and space with Western classics and Lingnan architecture. The Brass Band's "The Horn of the Common People" is solemn and thought-provoking; the "Royal Fireworks Music" is passionate, gorgeous and brilliant.
When music resonates with the green bricks and tiles, the dance pavilion and the singing stage, a wonderful harmony arises spontaneously, making people forget the difference between east and west, the old and the new. After the performances by the musicians during the music week, the museum specially arranged a classic Cantonese opera excerpt "Battlefield Alliance" for everyone to watch. At the scene, well-known musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and London Symphony Orchestra listened with gusto, took photos and videos, and enjoyed themselves.
Cantonese Opera Museum - Cantonese Opera Excerpts Photographed by Li Lewei
Music Week instructor and principal flutist of the London Symphony Orchestra, Gareth Davis, said after hearing this Cantonese opera performance, he felt like "seeing an old friend": "This kind of Traditional opera is really charming. I have listened to many Western composers create works inspired by this music, and I also encountered 'Cantonese opera' in the film music I participated in and recorded."
from Sweden Percussionist Carl Tolson lamented the moving beauty of Cantonese opera percussion: "This is the first time I have heard this kind of traditional opera percussion performance. It is so wonderful and very impactful. And I feel, The instrument itself is also very beautiful."
It is worth mentioning that the Cantonese Opera Museum where the musicians are located is itself a model of the rejuvenation of traditional culture. Every blue brick and every stone slab here is collected from the private sector, and is shown in a new look in the museum. The museum integrates Guangdong's traditional three carvings and two sculptures, and Chaoshan inlaid porcelain into the modern cultural context, without any violation... ....What is even more touching is that when classical music plays in the museum, this blend of Eastern and Western cultures, the synaesthesia of visual art and auditory art, is perfectly integrated in an instant, creating a new artistic charm. .
Cantonese Opera Museum Li Lewei photographed
The second stop - the outdoor performance at the Guangdong Provincial Museum. Tolson specially added China's unique percussion instruments to his "ymcg percussion horn" specially created for the music week, creating an unparalleled Eastern imagery. Tolson led several young percussionists from the ymcg to perform this work on the new central axis of Guangzhou. The exciting drum beats were heard, and the instruments that connect the east and west, the tradition and the modern merged into a melody, just like Telling the history of this city.
Guangdong Provincial Museum-Percussion Photographed by Li Le
During the visit to the Guangdong Provincial Museum, the instructors and students of the Music Week gained a deeper understanding of Chaozhou woodcarvings. On May 20, 2006, Chaozhou wood carving was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists; on May 24, 2018, Chaozhou wood carving was selected into the first batch of national traditional craft revitalization lists. As a traditional craft in Guangdong, Chaozhou wood carving’s pursuit of “delicate but not greasy, large but not empty, complex but not chaotic, gorgeous but not vulgar” coincides with the balance, rigor and meticulousness pursued by classical music. No wonder clarinetist Elga was particularly impressed after the visit: “This city has given us so much, especially in the collision of cultures, it has inspired us musicians. Therefore, we can serve the people of Guangzhou through outreach activities. Presenting our music is also a kind of cultural feedback."
Under the Canton Tower, the young musicians of the Music Week used Beethoven's woodwind ensemble works and Dukas's brass horns to launch a broader and more modern dialogue of time and space. On the top of the Canton Tower, two brass players played "I Love You, China" and "Under the Lion Rock" in the cloud in the form of a trumpet and French horn duo, integrating the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into the grand historical narrative of the country's overall development. Add a touch of youthful and harmonious bright color.
One of the most eye-catching aspects of the outreach activities was the performance of two "licensed" pilot musicians of Music Week: Music Week Music Director and Master Conductor Daniel Harding and percussionist Carl Tolson under the Canton Tower. The flight simulator performs a "special flight" at a one-to-one speed.
The two musician pilots went step by step from flight preparation, route explanation, take-off and landing safety points, etc., and then performed a test flight, and then led the students to "practice flight". As a pilot, you need to take into account multiple departments and links, such as the instrument panel that should be focused on during takeoff and landing, the flight data involved, the weather at the takeoff and landing place, the airport location and traffic conditions, safe paths, communication with the tower, etc. The commonality with conducting a symphony is probably that it requires both an overall structure and an in-depth understanding of every detail, with control, execution, and advancement.
It can be said that every flight and every command is a "live" (live). The mentality and skills must be fully prepared. During the process, you must be bold, careful, "pay attention to safety", or "act on the spot", which cannot be copied. of.
Canton Tower-Simulated Driving Photo by Li Lewei
2024ymcg’s outreach activities, sea, land and air city walk, the world and the earth, the east and west collide, it is probably the most innovative in history. It’s both sparkling and joyful. The outreach of this music week will not stop in Guangzhou. Next, the music of ymcg will be played on the waterfront of the Hong Kong Cultural Center.
Nandu reporter Zhu Rongting Intern Chen Mingxinyu
