Strings with wings

Chu introduces his upcoming Super Cello festival at a Beijing media event.[Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

"The first thing is to teach them the importance of chamber music."

Chu formed his cello ensemble in 2005, dedicating most of his time to chamber music. In the past few years, Chu has toured the country with the ensemble, performing in places where the cello is rarely heard.

In 2015, he and his team visited locations along the ancient Silk Road and performed works by Bach, Debussy and Mahler.

The destination venues included Qinghai Lake in Northwest China's Qinghai province.

Chu and his team also played amid natural settings in nearby Gansu province, including the Yadan National Geological Park that features landforms created by winds from the Gobi Desert.

"When I was a child, I was very imaginative. I played my instrument on the balcony, imagining that I was a bird or that I was running after a cloud," says Chu.

"I guess my relationship with music comes from within. I am eager to express. It's a psychological thing."

Three young cellists - Jonathan Roozeman, William Hagen and Shen Ziyu - from the Kronberg Academy, an international cultural institution in Germany, will perform at the Super Cello festival.

"Chu plays an important part in our music family. Music is a universal language and keeps us connected," says Raimund Trenkler, who has been Kronberg Academy's managing director and artistic director since the institution was founded in 1993.

According to Chu, many children who are learning cello attended the music festival last year with their parents.

Besides recitals and master classes, these young people will be offered an open stage at the lobby of the National Library Arts Center to display their talent this year.

"They can play whatever they want. It will be so much fun," says Chu.

Speaking of the influence of the event, Zhu Wei, a veteran media personality who's also Chu's friend, says: "Chu gathers musicians of different schools together and shares music with audiences without many boundaries.

"The most important thing, for Chu, is to connect the audience with music. You feel touched by music and have a good time during the festival, which is what Chu wants."