Hosted by the US-China Music Institute of Bard College and the Central Conservatory of Music, Season Eight of the China Now Music Festival concluded at Lincoln Center on Sunday with a powerful finale.
The afternoon featured a dynamic three-part program: Guan Naizhong’s percussion concerto From the Age of the Dragon; Ma Hanrui’s chamber opera Mi (The Enigma); and Wang Danhong’s symphonic poem Four Seasons in Lingering Garden.
Together, these works celebrated the legacy of three generations of Chinese composers, highlighting their innovative contributions at the intersection of music, dance and opera through immersive, multi-sensory performances.
Guan opened the concert with From the Age of Dragon. Inspired by the dragon’s powerful symbolism in Chinese culture and by the rare alignment of the first year of the 21st century with the Year of the Dragon, an event that happens only once every 3,000 years, the work unfolds in four movements: The Sun, The Moon, The Stars and The Earth. For this performance, Guan presented the first and last movements: The Sun, symbolizing light, strength and faith; and The Earth, celebrating human connection.
Mi by Gen Z composer Ma was up next, showcasing the fresh perspective of a rising young talent. Born in 1998, Ma is a Ph.D. candidate at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She began studying composition at the age of 12, and her work reflects a unique fusion of Eastern cultural elements with Western compositional techniques.
Having premiered in December 2023, the chamber opera features a libretto by Pan Geng, a professor at Beijing City University and visiting scholar at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Mi reflects both Pan and Ma’s inspiration from David Henry Hwang’s acclaimed play M. Butterfly, blending three vocal parts with a fusion of Chinese and Western instruments. The work delves into themes of identity, deception and the enduring power of cultural myth.
Lastly, Wang Danhong, a professor of composition at the Central Conservatory of Music, presented Four Seasons in Lingering Garden, an exclusive piece for the Bard East/West Ensemble. Inspired by the classical Lingering Garden in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, the piece captures the shifting moods of each season through a rich blend of traditional Chinese instruments and a Western string quintet, accompanied by expressive choreography.
Arnav Shirodkar, a musician and Bard graduate, came to show his support. He has previously performed in China and plays several traditional Chinese instruments, with the guzheng (a plucked zither) being his favorite. He said Bard’s collaboration with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing brought him new opportunities.
“You get to see perspectives from both sides of culture,” he said. “You get to experience different sounds, different ways of rehearsing, learning.”
Shirodkar emphasized the impact of the program within Bard College.
“This program has a huge presence in the Bard community, and there are a lot of Chinese students that get to take part in music that is very unique at Bard. And the same way lots of Western students get to hear something they might not necessarily hear at another school,” he said.
“The themes are universal: love, death, trial, error, nature. Those are all things that are universal, but it’s interesting to hear how they are expressed differently with different instruments, in particular the Asian sound, the Chinese sound with those instruments,” said Nancy Murray, who returned to this year’s China Now Music Festival with her partner after having previously enjoyed China Now music festival’s seventh season.
“These things sound a little different to a Western ear. And I love the combination of the blend between the two, you know, music is music. It’s universal. It’s a wonderful bridge for people to learn about different cultures, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to come and see this. I just felt very fortunate,” she added.
Another attendee, Vivian, said she thinks there should be more cross-cultural instrumental collaborations.
“I really like the blend (of Chinese and Western instruments). I think they offset each other in an interesting way. I like the combination … As far as I’m concerned, I think music and the integration of cultures is just so important for everything, from the arts to world peace,” she said.
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