By: Acting Assistant Principal 2nd violin, Shuti Huang
It’s been seven years since I last came to Shanghai. I was born here and moved to Australia 29 years ago. My move to Australia all began in 1979 when I was studying at the Shanghai Conservatorium. Australian violist and conductor John Curro and violinist Jan Sedivka came to Shanghai on a cultural exchange program between Australia and China and I was chosen to play for them at a masterclass. I spent almost two weeks with them and forged a long lasting friendship with both of them. Even though I could only speak at few words of English at the time, we had a strong rapport. They liked my playing so immediately upon their return to Australia they offered me a scholarship to the Queensland Conservatorium. So, in 1980 I came to Queensland … what a change from Shanghai!
And from then on, I have stayed in Australia and have been very fortunate to be playing with the Sydney Symphony for over 20 years.
The Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai is an amazing building. I had heard so much about the venue but had never played in it. It’s only a couple of years old I think. It’s a very nice hall for the strings to play in. The sound was very good and my colleagues said they too felt comfortable in the hall. I thought the concert went well and I was thrilled to have my aunt and uncle in the audience as well as some of my former students and neighbours.
Every time I come back to perform in Shanghai I always feel a little emotional. It’s very special for me. I had never worked as a professional musician in China but since leaving China I have performed in Shanghai with different orchestras. It’s very interesting to see the changes over the years in the behaviour of audiences in Shanghai. They have become quite sophisticated. Only a few of them clapped between the first and second movements of the piano concerto during the concert. The sophistication has come about because all the major orchestras come to Shanghai now – Vienna, Berlin, LSO etc etc. It’s a major centre for everything now in the far east.
The level of music education is also of a very high standard in Shanghai. I was tremendously pleased to hear from our Principal Viola Roger Benedict who conducted a masterclass at the Shanghai Conservatorium High School yesterday how he was bowled over by the standard of the students. In my days we were good technically but musically very raw. Now they are excellent in all areas.
Of course, there are still a few customs at concerts that perhaps we are not used to in the west - something though that gave all in the orchestra, and me, a bit of a culture shock was the pop music that began in the hall as we were all coming off stage at the conclusion of the performance. I found this so interesting. This kind of thing used to happen in China at the end of each movie session but I was surprised to hear this music played over the loud speakers in the hall after a serious concert.
In my view, Shanghai changes every month. Twenty-nine years ago, the site of the venue for our Shanghai performance was a rice field. People came here for picnics and fishing and a few villages were scattered around. It was very rural. All of a sudden, in the past 20 years, it changed. Shanghai is like Manhattan now – the New York of the orient … and the construction and development in the city just continues. When I left China I could not imagine the amount of development that has occurred over the past 20 years. In fact, a lot of my colleagues wonder if I will move back here because they like it so much.
But I am happy in Sydney and extremely glad to be part of such a good orchestra. This tour is going to be remembered for many years to come. There are already talks that we should come here more often because the potential for classical music – audiences, CD sales etc – is here in Asia. We should always be in touch with this part of the world.
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