Over the past few years, the question of how to promote traditional Chinese music has been bugging Qu Xiaosong, a musician who teaches at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

"For a long time, Chinese musicians have not been paying as much attention to traditional Chinese music as they have to Western music," said the 48-year-old composer. "It's time to reverse the trend."

Talking to students and faculty members with the Department of Composition of the conservatory, he asked them to write traditional Chinese music.

His efforts produced two concerts, held at the Shanghai Centre Theatre on November 13-14.

Called "Query in Autumn," the concerts were reminiscent of "Query in Heaven," a long poem by famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan about spiritual exploration.

But Qu Xiaosong hates using the word "exploration" to describe the concerts.

"That's because to some people, it means 'experimental' - which means immature and unpopular," he said.

With a big screen above the stage, the concerts started with a video of interviews with composers such as Yang Liqing, Qu Xiaosong, Wang Xilin, Gao Weijie, Ye Guohui, Xu Jian-qiang and Jia Daqun.

"By watching interviews on screen, audiences can feel closer to the composers," explained Li Suyou, producer of the concerts. "These composers can illustrate the principles of their creation."

Unfortunately only a third of the tickets to the concerts were sold.

"Some people have a stereotyped opinion of what traditional Chinese music is like," said Qu. "They think it should be melodious and familiar, but the concerts were totally different from their expectations."

Out of the 16 programmes, 11 are new productions like Yang Liqing's "Si," played with five Chinese musical instruments, Zhou Qing's "Burning," with four Chinese musical instruments, Qin Yi's "Zhen Ru II," a pipa solo, Jin Wang's "Form Word," by pipa and zheng, Qu Xiaosong's "Mirage," for a vocalist and three percussionists, and Xu Jianqiang's "Liu Yaoling," played with eight Chinese musical instruments.

All of the works have a Chinese cultural background. Qu's "Mirage" is a work that has been adapted from poems by great poet and essayist Su Shi of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), including "Meeting the Rain on the Way Home" and "Rhapsody on the Red Cliff." Wang Xilin's "Shang" uses dramatic musical language from northern China's traditional operas to express sadness and suffering. Xu Jianqiang's "Liu Yao Ling" is adapted from traditional Chinese folk music.

"What I have always attempted is something new, fresh and exciting," said Xu Jianqiang, who was inspired to write "Liu Yao Ling" by a trip to the gobi desert in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. "I was so impressed with the silent gobi that I tried hard to imitate the sounds of silence after returning to Shanghai."

Although the composers tried to bring a unique style to their work, audiences found some of them resembling each other.

"Perhaps the phenomenon shows the difficulties of reforming the traditional Chinese music," said Qu. "While we attempted to break away from one convention, we began to follow another tradition."

He said that over the past 50 years, some musicians have chosen to have classical and traditional Chinese music "Westernized" to cater to the so-called modern taste.

"It's stupid," said Qu Xiaosong. "Some so-called modern works are only second-hand comprehension of music in the 18th and 19th century Europe."

He believes that in today's China, in a cultural environment full of rough, rash and superficial "modern taste," the first step for the Chinese musical renaissance is to wash off the "pollution" of Western music and show the original purity of classic Chinese music.

"Perhaps we should start working in a modern society, but when we go to a concert, we expect to find something different and unique rather than something similar to the atmosphere we live in every day," he said.

Few Chinese composers can resist the influence of Western music, and students in composition departments at music conservatories always start with Western music.

"That's why some Chinese composers never compose Chinese music, only Western-style works," explained Zhu Jian'er, a professor with the Department of Composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. "Some musicians specializing in traditional Chinese musical instruments cannot find proper jobs in keeping with their academic degrees."

One example is Zhang Tie, a pipa player and young teacher at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He has played pipa since his childhood, but is still perplexed by the future of Chinese music.

"Students of composition should learn more Chinese folk songs and Chinese operas instead of pure Western classics," said Xu Jianqiang. "They should also learn more about traditional Chinese poems and ink-paintings."

Although the concert was less of a success than Qu had hoped, some young musicians in Shanghai have formed a "Shanghai Modern Chinese Music Band," inspired by him.

The two concerts are just the first step for the band, said Qu. More will come up.

(China Daily 12/01/2000)