Today's China can tell the Chinese story very calmly and confidently
When the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics came to a wonderful end, people once again saw the wonderful moments of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games at the closing ceremony. At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, Ye Xiaogang's piano concerto "Starlight" was brilliantly interpreted by Lang Lang and brought to about 3 billion viewers around the world. The work accurately conveys the requirements of Zhang Yimou, the general director of the opening ceremony, for this piece of music - expressing "fantasies about the starry sky and love for life" and "letting the world audience understand the way of thinking of modern Chinese and the optimism and ambition for the future".
After 14 years, when it comes to the opening and closing ceremonies of this year's Winter Olympic Games, Ye Xiaogang said that China can now tell the Chinese story very calmly and confidently:
"Because China's national strength in 2008 is incomparable to now." In the development of the world economy, China has always been optimistic. Then after the economy prospers, culture will also prosper relatively. Our high-tech level this time is higher than in 2008. Now we can confidently tell the story of China in an artistic language that the world can understand. I think this time to judge the situation is particularly appropriate, and appropriate is the most important. So this time I think China is doing a very good job. ”
"Telling stories with music and moving people with music" is the goal that Ye Xiaogang pursues as a composer. He hopes that Chinese music can truly enter the door of world music. Ye Xiaogang's representative symphonic works "Horizon", "Will Enter the Wine", "Starlight", "Himalayan Light", "Grassland Song", "Peace Festival", "Lu Xun", "Beautiful Countryside", "The Last Paradise" and so on have been widely praised at home and abroad. In order to promote exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese music industry and the world, he also promoted the Beijing Modern Music Festival, the Qingdao Ocean International Music Festival, the Harbin Music Competition, the Shenzhen "Belt and Road" International Music Festival, the Guangzhou Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Music Festival... For how to tell the Story of China well, Ye Xiaogang has his own experience.
Since the first "Ye Xiaogang China Story" series of concerts was held at Lincoln Center in the United States in 2013, Ye Xiaogang has successively held a number of "China Story" concerts at home and abroad. "Old works" are constantly improving and rich, "new works" are emerging in an endless stream, and Ye Xiaogang's creative style is always under continuous exploration. ”
"I've had a lot of concerts around the world, and I remember when I gave a concert at Lincoln Center in New York on September 22, 2013, it was still quite unusual abroad. At that time, I had not yet said that I wanted to tell the story of China, this slogan had not yet been proposed, and I had already gone to the concert. Later, the concerts became more and more open, and people also knew about Chinese musicians and Chinese culture, and Chinese contemporary culture was also very developed and creative, and the world's impression of China was becoming more and more comprehensive. It turned out that their understanding was incomplete, and our external propaganda ability was limited, but later it slowly improved.
The source of my music creation is the world. I have three sources of musical spirituality: Chinese classical music, German classical music and American contemporary music technology. So the structure of my musical compositions is very unique. This is a kind of natural success, that is, the eastern and western cultures have been cultivated to a certain extent, and maybe some big works can come out, probably when my time comes, this is an accumulation process. ”
Ye Xiaogang was interviewed by China Education News Network
The musical "horizon" of life begins with the family
The accumulation of Ye Xiaogang's music began as a child. He was born into a musical family, his father Ye Chunzhi was one of the representatives of the Chinese music scene in the 1950s, and his mother was a vocalist. Ye Xiaogang began to learn piano from the age of 4, insisting on practicing the piano every day, sometimes practicing for 8 hours a day, often playing until the downstairs person took a bamboo pole and poked the ceiling, and the neighbor took a stone to smash the glass of his house. After graduating from high school, he was sent to work on the farm and later to work as a factory worker, but his love for music was never abandoned.
In 1977, Ye Xiaogang finally waited for the opportunity of the college entrance examination, and he did not expect that the Central Conservatory of Music only recruited composition students in Shanghai that year. His mother comforted him and said, "To learn the piano is to play other people's works, and to learn to compose is to play your works by others." So Ye Xiaogang transferred to the Composition Department, and he stood out from more than 600 candidates and became one of the 6 lucky people in Shanghai.
Entering the Composition Department of the Central Conservatory of Music, Ye Xiaogang's classmates included a group of outstanding musicians who later became active on the world music stage: Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Chen Yi, Guo Wenjing, Qu Xiaosong, etc. Everyone is like a sponge, fully absorbing nutrients in the ocean of music, and blooming with brilliance and radiance. The nourishment of music has made Ye Xiaogang continue to move forward on the road of creation, and in 1982, Ye Xiaogang's works won the first place in the "Zilpin Composition Competition" in the United States. In 1987, Ye Xiaogang, with excellent grades, won a scholarship from the Eastman School of Music in the United States to study composition in the United States.
Founded in 1921 by George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, the Eastman School of Music was one of the most innovative academies in the United States at the time. Eastman believed that music could enrich the mind, cultivate intelligence, heal the soul, and believed that music could change lives.
When ye Xiaogang went to the United States to study, he was 32 years old, and the study abroad life was two points and one line between school and residence, and he worked on weekends to earn pocket money. Occasionally he would go to the Metropolitan Opera to listen to live performances, and he felt particularly enjoyable. The biggest gain that study abroad life brought to Ye Xiaogang was that he saw the diversity of culture and experienced the charm of modern music technology in the United States:
"It made me deeply aware of the diversity of the world and the diversity of cultures. When I was studying at the Eastman School of Music, I was once photographed in front of lincoln center in New York, and A thought flashed through my mind: When will I be able to come here for a solo concert? On September 22, 2013, my solo symphony concert 'China Story' was held at lincoln center concert hall, performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which was also a reality at that time. ”
Ye Xiaogang with students on campus
Music is a kind of soul joy
Whether it is Ye Xiaogang's film and television music creation or pure music creation, he strives to find a meeting point between "modern" and "traditional". Wandering in the cultures of the East and the West, letting history and modernity meet in his works, man and nature in dialogue, he calmly tells chinese stories with music, and communicates with the world through music.
In recent years, in his music creation, Ye Xiaogang has also fully absorbed the essence of Chinese painting's emphasis on "artistic conception" and "blank space", and more or less made the necessary "blank space" for the composer's secondary creation of conductors, performers and singers, so that the "Chinese story" presented as a whole has the charm of Chinese national painting.
As a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and chairman of the Chinese Musicians Association, promoting aesthetic education is something he has been working hard to practice. When it comes to the current "double reduction" policy, Ye Xiaogang feels that it is very beneficial for parents to adjust their mentality, let art learning remove impetuousness and utilitarianism, and really focus on cultivating children's artistic literacy. As a parent, he does not regret that his daughter later chose to study medicine instead of music: "The conservatory of music does not want to take the exam, and music also depends on chance, talent, and fate. Not every child can become Lang Lang, Lang Lang's talent is to seek one in a million miles, and one in a million miles. So many people in the world, it is only one Lang Lang. I often say "God' opportunity," but you just don't know it.
Truly talented musicians do not mean that hard work can be practiced, hard practice is the foundation, the first is to have enough sensitivity. I think China's education, or parents are slowly adapting to this environment, is not as crazy as in the past.
But improving musical literacy is very right, and it is necessary to achieve what purpose this state is less. People in other industries, I believe that if they are artistically cultivated, their lives will be colorful. There is no doubt about this, music is a kind of soul pleasure. ”
Ye Xiaogang gave the inaugural concert at the School of Music of the University of Chinese, Shenzhen, Hong Kong
I am proud that I am a witness, a participant, a promoter of my time
As a teacher, Ye Xiaogang hopes to help the growth of young musicians through more scientific selection and training methods, so that they can shine on the world stage. In 2021, Ye Xiaogang has one more identity - the dean of the Conservatory of Music of the University of Chinese in Hong Kong (Shenzhen) (hereinafter referred to as "Hong Kong, China and Shenzhen"). The Conservatory of Music hopes to learn from the advanced educational concepts of first-class colleges and universities at home and abroad, with the goal of cultivating high-end talents with both academic and performance capabilities, innovate the training mode of music and art talents, and become an international music talent training base based on Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, facing the whole country, Asia and the world.
"I am a Native of Guangdong, born in Shanghai, came to Beijing to study and work, went to the United States to study for 7 years, and returned to Beijing. Then back to Guangdong, life is a circle. These three regions are not different for me. In Shanghai, I have an advantage, I am the only composer of my generation born in Shanghai; in Beijing, I am also a southerner. I have a sense of the majesty of Beijing's atmosphere, but in my bones I am a southerner and relatively beautiful.
Being a dean in Shenzhen is a whole new attempt for me. I was the vice dean of the Central Conservatory of Music for 9 years, but this time it was a new experience from a management point of view, and it was also a challenge. So I'm willing to try it, and I'm happy.
The Conservatory of Music of the University of Chinese, Shenzhen, Hong Kong is required to take the unified examination, not the school examination. A one-size-fits-all approach cannot recruit good students, which is a great waste of national resources. I've been fighting for this. ”
The Hong Kong Conservatory of Music is the first university conservatory in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to be established in accordance with the Regulations on Sino-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools, and the Shenzhen Municipal Government has invested about 1.75 billion yuan to build one of the "Top Ten Cultural Facilities" in Shenzhen. But Ye Xiaogang and a group of outstanding musicians who gathered here with enthusiasm encountered the embarrassment of admissions. In the first enrollment of the Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2021, teachers found in the actual teaching that although the students admitted to the college entrance examination for the first time have high scores in the college entrance examination culture class, they do not have the ability to directly study professionally in the conservatory, whether it is professional ability or artistic literacy. Therefore, the school had to adjust the original teaching plan, starting from the most basic strings and scales, which are the courses that ordinary music teachers can do. Some authoritative experts pointed out that from a professional point of view, these students have missed the best training time to learn professional music skills, and the four years of undergraduate study time is not enough to enable them to complete stage performances.
Ye Xiaogang proposed: As far as the world is concerned, the admissions examination of art schools is directly faced by teachers to candidates, so as to select candidates who are most likely to become artists under the most accurate artistic judgment. Since the establishment of art academies in China in the 1920s and 1930s, especially since the founding of New China, art examinations have trained countless artists through this internationally popular art selection method, making historic contributions to the prosperity and development of national culture. Judging from the enrollment case of the Hong Kong China-Shenzhen Conservatory of Music, if there is no examination selection of professional teachers in the school before admission, it is difficult to recruit outstanding students and become a world-class higher music school.
Ye Xiaogang suggested: First, please ask the relevant competent departments to support the Hong Kong China-Shenzhen Conservatory of Music and other cooperative universities in the Greater Bay Area to integrate with the recruitment system of international art colleges, and approve the school examination qualifications of the Hong Kong China-Shenzhen Conservatory of Music as soon as possible, so that the College can truly recruit first-class students. 2. Allow art admissions from relevant colleges and universities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to take the lead in terms of recruitment system, subject settings, teaching quality, etc., and enjoy the same enrollment treatment as professional art colleges such as the Central Conservatory of Music. Third, Hong Kong's cultural and artistic market is relatively mature, with a mature art industry system and operating mechanism, and in the future, the Conservatory of Music of the Greater Bay Area can effectively complement each other's advantages in the field of culture and art by holding activities and carrying out project cooperation. Create major international music competitions, international music seasons or music festivals, and create a number of representative works with the characteristics of the Greater Bay Area and Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
As vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and chairman of the China Musicians Association, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Ye Xiaogang hoped that the music industry could do more in carrying out aesthetic education and cultural poverty alleviation. He is also seriously thinking about and understanding the current situation of aesthetic education in poor areas, especially music education, and calls for nationwide aesthetic education to promote the popularization of music and improve the quality of the people.
"I often go to various regions to investigate and investigate our art education. Don't say art education, that is, the difference between general education is still very large. I see the problem, the local music education is not comprehensive, I can offer something, or provide some advice, at least I am an industry person. ”
In addition to busy work, Ye Xiaogang likes to share some of his life insights on his public account, and also publishes some essay articles, "Cooking Tea with Plain Hands" allows many readers to see the colorful other side of Ye Xiaogang's life.
In the past two years, Ye Xiaogang has been writing an autobiography " The Boundless Sea of Suffering" Ye Xiaogang said, "The boundless sea of bitterness is not necessarily bitterness." 'The sea of bitterness' is an adjective. In fact, the struggle in life is endless, the key is how do you know. Recognizing that the sea of suffering is boundless, it is actually very smart, and life is always a process. ”
Ye Xiaogang said: "I am very proud that I am a witness, participant and promoter of my time. Hopefully, when this generation of young people reaches the age of 60, they will remember that there was once a person like me. ”
Ye Xiaogang and his students went to Tibet
Ye Xiaogang: Member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Vice Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Chairman of the Chinese Musicians Association, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the Central Conservatory of Music, Dean of the School of Music of the University of Chinese, Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
Born in Shanghai in 1955, he was admitted to the Composition Department of the Central Conservatory of Music in 1977. In 1987, Ye Xiaogang went to the United States to study at the Eastman Conservatory of Music.
In 1993, his famous work "Horizon" was selected as a "20th Century Chinese Music Classic", in 2008, he composed "Starlight" was performed at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, and in 2012, he won the "Guggenheim" Foundation Composition Award in the United States. In recent years, his representative works include "Will Enter the Wine", "The Light of the Himalayas", "The Song of the Grassland", "Peace Festival", "Lu Xun", "Beautiful Countryside", "The Last Paradise" and so on. In addition, he also created a large number of film and television music, including "Half Life" and "Jade Guanyin".
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.
Author: Written by Duan Fenghua, video Xiang Jiachu, video Qi Yue