The league of Chinese pianists, with a hair style

Song Siheng

Rudolph Tang

On my way home on the chilly night of November 29th in Beijing from the Chinese Theatre, I came across the Beijing Blood Centre somewhere on the 3rd ring road. Part of the neon light was missing from the letter B and that made it read as Flood. It was so true that for the past two days the Chinese Theatre was indeed flooded with
Song Siheng

pianists. Ten, as a matter of fact, were called upon by the almighty China Central Television (CCTV) Music Channel for the occasion of Glory Blossoms in its latest edition.

The Glory Blossoms is an ambitious TV concert project launched by the Music Channel early this year in order to harness the power of some of the leading Chinese instrumentalists in packs. It started with Erhu, Guzheng, then Pipa by naming in each category a group of ten musicians. Initially the selection of musicians stirred quite some debate among the academics and masters. Some went further even by publicly denouncing the idea or by declining to participate even if they appeared on the list as a result of online voting.
The series went on nevertheless with the inclusion of ten sopranos, ten tenors and, in its latest yet biggest campaign so far at the end of November, the ten young pianists. According to Ms Ge Xiaohong, director of the concert, the pianists were chosen based on their "prestige, achievement and availability, their age range differed and the entries may vary from time to time".
That the ten pianists were based at the remote Chinese Theatre for three days including intense rehearsal, video taping and the gala concert is already an achievement of its own merit that few could ever rival. Both the CCTV and the Chinese Theatre are not ace players on the classical music games in China. With Glory Blossoms, they aim to dominate in both market share and public attention.
At some point, they did. Among the ten young pianists are laureates (if not first prize winners) of all the major piano competitions including Van Cliburn, Leeds, Queen Elisabeth, Marguerite Long, Chopin, Animato, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Busoni. Lang Lang did not appear on the list but he agreed to be the guest anchorman for the night with two other professionals from the CCTV. Even if he did not get close to the piano, he still had all the charisma and dilemma to steal the show. The Chinese Theatre were packed with enthusiastic audience that night, most of them juveniles with their eager parents. The stage fancy full of LED and lighting effects resembles that of Grammy or Echo Klassik only without the award procession.
I came to the Theatre one day before the show. Five of the ten pianists are great friends dating back to my previous occupations. I know them quite well, four girls and six boys with electrified hair styles. On a common ground I asked those who travelled a lot and studied abroad "Have you ever came across something like this in other countries?" Their reply was simple and unanimous "Not really." I then asked "How do you feel being in the sessions?" "Very interesting" was the most frequent description.
The concert was interesting in many ways. There were five Bösendorfer grands on the stage when the concert started with two sitting to each playing four-hand a rock fusion of Beethoven's Ode to Joy and the opening bars of the Fifth. In the following two sequences each of them made to the stage by playing a 3-4 minutes pieces either written by Chopin or by Liszt. The fourth sequence was a music pantomime set to the story of The Legend of 1900 in which they played classical and jazz arrangements. There were three Bösendorfer baby grands at the stage corridor, outnumbered in the demand for the practice of ten.
The final sequence for the second half was the crazy scene in which the ten jointly contributed to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in turn like a roulette on the two pianos, accompanied by China Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yang Yang. They sat to five on either side on the dim stage and only dashed to the piano when their part came. Then they rendered about one minute and rushed off back to the seat, followed by the one in the queue. There were scenes when two bumped into each other on the dark stage and one almost fell off missing a staircase. One of the them, Sa Chen, was seen most of time turning the stool. The swiftly changing scene put pianists' ability to adapt and to elaborate at its field test to the scrutinising eyes of the audience as well as the cameras. Some failed, as their strength and focus faded in the encore, the final movement of the Yellow River concerto. Some prevailed.
The final episode was well observed and read at the backstage lounge after the concert. Lang Lang shared the lounge with the conductor but he was the sole star in the room. His lounge was packed with press and its doorway a long line of anxious onlookers, assistants, managers, recording company representatives, fans, politicians expecting to say hello and cheese. While the ten were waiting for retake in their lounge still with make-up and costume on, Lang Lang swept the tiny backstage with all the crowd and altogether they vanished into the pitch darkness of the long hallway, leaving the ten in an aura of solidarity and emptiness.
That might sum well the Glory Blossoms.

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