Wuxi Chinese Orchestra brings Eastern culture to life across Europe

Wuxi, designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Music, is raising its voice on the global stage to champion cultural outreach and urban promotion through the power of its unique Jiangnan melodies.

Building on this momentum of global cultural outreach, Wuxi in Jiangsu province will showcase its commitment to international exchange with the upcoming 2026 International Month and International Cherry Blossom Week in late March. This annual initiative — centered on the core themes of economy, consumption and friendship — features a diverse roster of events including multinational corporate exchanges, international cultural and tourism promotions, and sister-city dialogues.

Having attracted participants from more than 30 countries and regions in recent years, the International Month has established itself as a key platform for elevating the city's global profile and facilitating mutual learning among civilizations.

The "going global" of culture and art is a resonating name card that Wuxi presents to the world. In February, the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra completed a 16-day Spring of Chinese Music European concert tour, which marked the orchestra's debut in Europe with its full ensemble of more than 80 musicians. It performed seven concerts across seven cities in the countries of Belgium, Germany, Austria and Hungary.

As a project supported by the 2025 National Arts Fund and a key initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's 2026 Happy Chinese New Year program, the tour was organized by the China Center for International Cultural Exchange and Tourism Promotion and the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra as part of Chinese New Year celebrations.

This tour not only marked the orchestra's largest-ever overseas undertaking but represented Wuxi, composing a vibrant new movement of cultural exchange and mutual understanding between China and the world.

"This tour gave me the strongest feeling that music knows no borders and culture resonates across them," said Wang Yijing, the principal bamboo flute player of the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra. "Every time we performed on stage, I could constantly sense the audience listening with their whole hearts. We interpreted our national culture with music from the East and they embraced it with the warmest applause."

Huang Yang, head of the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra, noted that in every city the orchestra visited, it consistently received high praise from audiences following each performance.

"Along the way, there were touching moments and exhilarating experiences, but the greatest joy was seeing our traditional music embraced by so many friends from around the world," Huang said.

At the debut performance in the Centre for Fine Arts in Belgium, all 2,000 seats were filled, with red lanterns and Chinese knots creating a rich festive atmosphere for Chinese New Year, according to the orchestra.

Classic pieces such as Spring Festival Overture, A Dream of Taihu and Spring Morning, along with other works featuring the distinctive style of the Jiangnan region, immersed the audience in the unique charm of Eastern music.

When the melody of Horse Race filled the hall, the familiar tune moved many overseas Chinese to tears, while European listeners spontaneously began clapping to the rhythm.

In Germany, at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie concert hall on the first day of this year's Chinese New Year, the orchestra conveyed New Year blessings through their music, earning four standing ovations from the audience. In the concert hall in Stuttgart — originally a 600-year-old farmhouse and stable — the architecture of the West and the music of the East combined to create a unique artistic harmony.

A German audience member, deeply moved by the performance in Hamburg, made a special trip to Stuttgart's concert hall, returning with friends just to lose themselves once more in the "sounds of Taihu Lake".

Another senior attendee shared their emotion at the venue, saying that he had visited Wuxi as early as the 1980s. Now hearing traditional music from Wuxi, the beautiful melodies instantly brought back fond memories of his time in the Jiangnan region, filling him with a deep sense of warmth and familiarity.