US college program includes Chinese music for first time

The "Music From China: East meets West" concert featuring six new works by Chinese composers, all using a combination of Chinese and Western instruments, preformed at Bard Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in New York on Sunday.

The concert, presented by Chamber Orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music and Bard’s The Orchestra Now, marks the launch of the Chinese Music Development Initiative, a new collaboration between the US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music, which offers the first comprehensive program for the study and performance of Chinese music in the United States.

"It’s a really good initiative and a milestone in the US-China exchanges in the culture and music fields," said Zhang Qiyue, the Chinese consul general in New York in her speech on Sunday. "The Central Conservatory of Music and Bard Conservatory have taken the lead in opening the Chinese culture in foreign conservatories," said the Central Conservatory President Yu Feng after receiving certificates of the faculty appointments granted by the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

The initiative includes a new undergraduate program for Chinese instruments erhu, guzheng and pipa to students at Bard College starting fall 2018, an annual Chinese Music Festival, a program of scholarly conferences, and a summer academy for high school age students.