In the Chinese New Year of 2024, I was invited to Minneapolis to listen to the Chinese New Year party, and then stopped in New York for a few days, spending most of my time in museums and halls in Manhattan, and listening to many meetings. Interestingly, there are Chinese or Asian faces shining in each show. After thinking about it, I feel that it is biased to write about any scene, and the group portraits and phenomena in it may be more worthy of our attention.
The Year of the Dragon is a good picture, so the Year of the Dragon listens to Yu Long. On February 20, at the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, I listened to Long Yu conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's Spring Festival. **It will open with the world premiere of Chinese composer Liang Haoyi's latest work, Overture to the Moon. Another piece from a Chinese composer is Transcendence, which was commissioned by Zhou Tian in 2019 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States, as a tribute to "contributors who may have been forgotten." **Violinist Kang Joomy was the soloist of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, while rising piano stars Clayton Stephenson and Wang Alan were piano soloists in Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, and the duo performed a two-piano version of Bernstein's Mambo from Bernstein's West Side Story, which was narrated by Bernstein's daughter Jamie Bernstein. At the end of the performance, more than 2,000 spectators applauded, and the conductors and musicians returned to the stage several times for curtain calls. The scene can be described as a group of elites, and many elites attended. Paying attention to the Chinese New Year does not necessarily mean that they understand our culture, but at least it expresses a gesture of longing for empathy. Asian culture has been embraced in the United States, or for this emigrant, the festivals that belong to the Asian people can also be shared very naturally, just like sharing their life experiences.
And the first generation of well-known Asian faces in the world, in the last century, were Yo-Yo Ma and Seiji Ozawa. On February 22, I listened to Yo-Yo Ma's special meeting with the Philadelphia City Orchestra and John Williams in Carnegie Hall. All the tracks were by John Williams, and the audience was packed, and there were many people standing in the box, which showed the enthusiasm of New Yorkers for Yo-Yo Ma and Williams, and I was also amazed when I listened to the record "Yo-Yo Ma and Williams". In the first half, the "Cello Concerto" was performed and dedicated to the conductor Seiji Ozawa, who premiered the work with Yo-Yo Ma. Today, the 69-year-old Yo-Yo Ma's technique has deteriorated, but the expression of tension in ** is still clearly visible, and he plays the concerto of four movements in an orderly and logical manner. Yo-Yo Ma's return performance of "Schindler's List" was even more tear-jerking. In the second half, John Williams conducted his own work, which also gave a sense of the strength of the Philadelphia strings. Yo-Yo Ma's influence on Asian-American artists is immense, and his relatable smile dissolves people's prejudices against Asia, just as Seiji Ozawa did with Asia. At the same time, his role model of success and his practical help have also allowed more Asian artists to find the confidence to go further and further on the road of **.
In recent years, South Korea's leading ability and status have been improved to the world. The final performance in New York was on February 23 at the David Geffen Hall to see the debut of Korean female conductor Eun Sun Kim with the New York Philharmonic, but it was not ideal. Her conducting was boring, with the first half of Finland not getting the orchestra well balanced, and the second half of Rachmaninoff's work being too mechanical. Emmanuel Aix's performance of Hellenberg's Piano Concerto is wonderful, with a magical electronic-like sound.
Many famous ** artists do not have commensurate strength, such as the Ukrainian female conductor Oksanalyniv, who I watched on my last day in New York to see a rehearsal of Turandot with the Metropolitan Opera. South Korean tenor Seokjong Baek, who sings Calaf, has a penetrating voice that successfully portrays Calaf as a romantic hero. Linif, on the other hand, often struggles to be naturally fluent in technique.
The United States is a multicultural melting pot that allows everyone to succeed, as the artists who took the stage in Manhattan this week. There was a time when finding a way out in the U.S. was almost the only way for Asian artists, but again, you have to identify with the power behind it, and it's a double-edged sword. With both opportunities and challenges, we will surely see more Asian faces appear on the stage in New York and around the world.
Macondo.