The view from . . . Beijing -- my Sun-Times CSO Far East Asia tour round-up

My Monday February 16 Chicago Sun-Times story.

 

CSO's Great Wall of sound

First China tour thrills audiences and stirs musicians

BY ANDREW PATNER

BEIJING -- Some 35 years after the first major American orchestra visited the People's Republic of China, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra became the final top ensemble to make its debut here as it closed its three-week, five-city, 10-concert tour of Far East Asia with two sold-out performances at the new National Centre for the Performing Arts (above, top) in the Chinese capital. 

 

^{_{With 11 Chinese-born players and some 20 Asian members, the CSO has the largest representation of Eastern musicians of any leading Western orchestra and throughout this tour of Japan, Hong Kong, a}nd Mainland China, the sense of homecoming and of connection between peoples was palpable.  From Yokohama to Tokyo to Hong Kong to Shanghai to Beijing, crowds greeted the orchestra with waves of applause and waited in lines at the stage door to meet performers.}  

^{The reputation and teaching experience that many non-Asian CSO players have in the Far East meant that the orchestra as a whole had the classical equivalent of rock-star groupies grabbing up available tickets even when top prices reached almost 500 U.S. dollars in Tokyo and $200 and more in Hong Kong and China.} 

 
^{CSO principal conductor Bernard Haitink was also making his first visit to China (and Hong Kong as well in his case) and he is revered here in a way normally reserved for legends. Banners with the Dutchman's face and showing the maestro in action on the podium hung throughout the cities on the orchestra's itinerary.} 

^{Standing ovations are not a part of concert ritual in the Far East, but a happy audience can keep curtain calls going for 10 minutes and more.  At Tokyo's famed Suntory Hall, audience members would not leave even after the musicians had exited the stage, demanding that Haitink come out for a solo bow.  Claques of brass fans shouted bravos from student galleries and cheap seats in every city when performances of Mahler's Sixth Symphony and Bruckner's Seventh, massive works both, came to an end.  Programs also included Haydn's Symphony No. 101, "The Clock," Mozart's No. 41, "Jupiter," and Richard Strauss's "Ein Heldenleben," "A Hero's Life," with Taiwan-born concertmaster Robert Chen as the brilliant soloist in the latter. 
 
"The Chicago Symphony is characterized by its intensity, its sense of common purpose, and its insistence on playing each piece at the highest level," Haitink told the Sun-Times.  "When you add the sense of these qualities that the Asian players bring as a part of their cultural heritage and the excellence that Japanese and Chinese audiences expect, I can say that this tour has been one of the most wonderful and moving experiences of my long career."  (Haitink turns 80 on March 4.)
 
Shanghai-born and -trained Li-kuo Chang, CSO assistant principal viola, had been lobbying and working for a tour to China since joining the orchestra in 1988 -- the first Chinese to be hired by a major U.S. orchestra.  Working closely with CSO administrators and sponsors and with Chinese officials, Chang helped to negotiate the arrangements and contracts for the appearances in Beijing and at the Shanghai Grand Theatre (above, below) that preceded them. 
 
"This is beyond a dream come true," said Chang backstage, with tears in his eyes after the final performance Saturday night.  "For so many of us to come home, and for all of us to show these audiences what can happen when people of all backgrounds play the most serious music together -- it's just overwhelming."}