"In the process of long-term contact with young artists, the most prominent feeling of the agency is the young artists' love for the profession and their desire for the stage. The brokerage company's job is more like building a road to the market, so that more cars will run on this road. We hope to export more musicians through this road and put them on a higher and wider stage. Liu Yisheng, founder of Meijie Music Agency, said. Artists are like brands operated by brokerage companies, how to find marketable channels for these brands, so that the value of these brands can be fully exerted, in addition to concerts, brand cooperation, online performance and education are also areas that need to be explored urgently. ”
Seeking the "endorsement" of famous artists
Fighting for opportunities for young people
In order to strive for smooth channels, Liu Yisheng led the Meijie music team to work hard. In fact, to win the opportunity for more young musicians to take the stage, it is particularly necessary to test the planning skills of the agency.
In the early stage of planning the 2020 Chengdu "Rongcheng Autumn" Music Festival, the organizers of the festival contacted Meijie Music, hoping to invite the company's artists to hold concerts in the festival. "The organizers are aiming at violin master Lu Siqing, but I don't want to miss any opportunity to promote young musicians, and suggest that the festival set up a section to showcase young artists." Liu Yisheng said, "Chengdu and even the whole of Sichuan are a place where musical talents emerge, and 'Rongcheng Autumn' as a local music festival in Sichuan should provide a stage for outstanding young musicians from Sichuan to show." But the proposal did not get a response at the beginning, and Liu Yisheng retreated to the second place, winning the afternoon of Lu Siqing's special concert to hold a "Sichuan Young Musicians Concert" in the same concert hall. Meijie Music invited several young musicians from Sichuan or with deep roots in Sichuan, such as horn player Zeng Yun, violinist Dang Huali, guitarist Kuang Junhong, composer Wen Ziyang, etc. to join the concert, invited Lu Siqing as artistic director, and performed as a guest. At the concert, titled "Future Music Light", several young people showed their abilities and presented a very high professional standard. Meijie Music also commissioned Wen Ziyang, a young composer from Sichuan, to compose a chamber music work "Autumn Yingrong City" based on the Sichuan folk song "The Sun Comes Out happy yangyang". When Lu Siqing and several young musicians played this work that made Sichuan people feel both familiar and fresh, the applause was thunderous.
Rongcheng Autumn Concert
Escorted by the master, the rural sounds played by young Sichuan artists are amazing, and the repertoire of "Autumn Reflection of Rongcheng" has been further expanded into a large-scale symphony work of the closing concert of the music festival. "The 'Autumn of Rongcheng' music new youth section has come to fruition, from striving for performance opportunities, planning themes, conceiving repertoire, to commissioning works, and the new works launched have evolved into works at the end of the music festival. Liu Yisheng sighed, "The 'Future Music Light' concert became the beginning of more music projects landing in Chengdu and deeply interacting with the 'Autumn of Rongcheng'. ”
Next, Meijie Music launched a project called "New Youth in Music". Liu Yisheng introduced: "This brand aims to focus on the outstanding young musicians of the contemporary era, committed to showing the new image of today's young Chinese musicians and giving out a new voice belonging to this era. ”
The New Youth Orchestra performs at the United Nations Event Day
The "New Youth of Music" has received positive responses from a number of young musicians, including Zhang Rose, a young soprano singer with a growing reputation on the international opera stage, Liu Wenwen, a musician who has traveled on concert stages at home and abroad, Yu Yuanchun, a young pipa player who has been widely praised in the professional field, and several other young musicians who are talented or award-winning: Bayan player Mao Junpeng, guitarist Kuang Junhong, clarinetist Lu Shuqing, violinists Dang Huali, He Shucong, and pianist Wang Zixiang , Liu Shihua... As an agency, Meijie has also set up an exclusive chamber orchestra for young performers, which not only deeply rooted and adhered to the classical chamber music tradition, studied and benchmarked the world's professional chamber orchestras, but also sought a new way of contemporary expression of classical music and communication with the audience, constantly exploring new musical styles, promoting the creation of new works, and displaying new stage effects and new musical charm.
New Youth Orchestra
"The development of music should be inherited, and before famous artists become famous, looking back at their growth path, there must be many predecessors to help." This makes the agency aware of a problem, that is, the future of the new generation of young musicians, how to go their artistic path, the current domestic more attention focused on the 'famous artists', this aspect of consideration is relatively lacking. Liu Yisheng said. The continuous export of new youth orchestras and their operation as a brand as a whole has become an important branch of Meijie Music's management work. "There are already some theaters approaching us and discussing similar performance projects, and it is foreseeable that more projects will be implemented in the future on the basis of a virtuous circle."
The decoding market relies on positive innovation
Professional brokers must expand their multi-dimensional business
Carry out the new music youth project, create a new youth orchestra, and realize the "future music light" Chengdu debut, the agency has long ceased to be "pushing" an artist, acting as an agent, extracting commissions as simple as possible, but as far as possible to give a full set of solutions. Around the career planning, performance planning, and resource integration of young musicians, the brokerage company has gradually forced the brokerage company to develop in the direction of one specialty and multi-functional, continuously expanding the extension of traditional business, and constantly changing the business ecology of the brokerage company under the creative drive of "accidentally a new inspiration and solving a new problem".
"Brokerage firms do have a lot of specificities in China. In Europe and the United States, singers as an example, first of all, we must choose a more opera, have rich resources in the field of opera, and sign a contract with a brokerage company that can have close contacts with various international opera houses. At the same time, in order to get more room for development, the agency will help him sign another record company, and the singer also needs to hire a public relations company to specialize in media promotion. In fact, more things should be done together in China, and all-round planning also has higher requirements for practitioners in the brokerage industry. ”
In recent years, the popularity and promotion of classical music has increased significantly, but it is not difficult to find that most of the young musicians who can be concerned by commercial brands have "gone out of the circle" in new media and social platforms through various means, and there are many young people who are more professional and excellent in the industry who have not entered the public eye.
Violinist Lu Siqing led the Meijie New Youth Orchestra to perform in Nine Trees
Help musicians dock resources, help commercial resources find the most suitable artistic expression, enhance brand value, brokerage companies are more and more like a link of a link, with this button link, the artists who were already prominent enough in the profession have more stages, the brand that has been well known to the public has been promoted, and the classical music that was originally regarded by the audience as Yangchun Baixue is more fashionable and young.
"It is often said that the young musicians who are honest and innovative, and the young musicians who have grown up today are no longer just talking to instruments in the ivory tower, they have a broad vision and a keen sense of the times. Today's classical music performances also need to adapt to the needs of the times, and in addition to adhering to tradition, they also seek some new and stereotyped performance forms. Liu Yisheng said.
To develop more new business models related to classical music, Liu Yisheng attributed it to art marketing, using art to cross border docking in an artistic way. At present, Meijie Music has gradually established cooperation with technology, automobile, real estate, finance, banking, insurance and other fields to provide artistic solutions. "It should be said that it is precisely because more and more young musicians have entered the traditional industry that tradition has the possibility and operation space to connect fashion and modern lifestyles."
Whether or not we can improve our relevant capabilities and make the expansion of related areas grow into a mature business direction will also be the key to whether brokerage companies can survive and live better under the impact of the epidemic.
Author: Jiang Linlin
Editor/Typographer: Liu Jia
Originally published in the magazine National Centre for the Performing Arts
April 2022 Issue 166