Classical Music Struggles to Be Heard

By staff reporter ZHANG XUEYING

Christmas and New Year is high classical music season; there are four or five performances every evening at theaters in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Even the Chinese Central Opera Theatre Symphony Orchestra, which rarely has chance to give commercial performances, works flat out at year-end playing in numerous Chinese provinces and municipalities. At other times of the year, however, large-scale commercial performances by China’s dozen-plus orchestras are rare; more than half of them have no specific performance season. The Chinese Central Opera Theater Symphony Orchestra’s accompaniment to in the Three Tenors Concert in the Forbidden City in 1999 and to the 2004 Andrea Bocelli Beijing Concert earned it high acclaim. Praise, however, does not convert to hard cash, and the orchestra has no choice but to wait for either a swing in market preference or government sponsored opportunities to perform.

Government and Corporate Support Needed
Only three of Beijing’s orchestras -- the China Philharmonic, China National Symphony Orchestra and China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, have regular performance seasons. Says Cao Huan, leader of the Chinese Central Opera Theater Symphony Orchestra, “This lucky three have fixed performance seasons because they get a great deal of support from the government and certain enterprises,” adding “If we received equal patronage, our orchestra could afford a performance season.” Cao is depressed about his orchestra’s lack of opportunity to perform. “An opera is a more commercial proposition than an orchestra concert because enjoying symphonies requires a musical background whereas operas are visual and, as such, much more acceptable to audiences, whether or not they understand Italian. The government provides a paltry one million yuan annually for the Central Opera Theater Symphony Orchestra, and graduate musicians that have just joined earn a salary of less than 500 yuan (about US$ 60) per month. A newly employed musician at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on the other hand, earns more than US$ 6,000 per month. How are Chinese orchestras to attract talented young musicians under such straitened circumstances?

Financial difficulty inhibits the orchestra from rehearsing new operas. A few years ago, the government commissioned it to produce a new opera, Ode to Yan’an, at a cost of 7 million yuan, but apart from a few special occasions it was never performed before the general public, because hire of the stadium cost between 30,000 to 60,000 yuan per night, which was far beyond the orchestra’s means.

Cao Huan’s gloom is compounded by the indifferent standard of instruments he and his fellows in the China Central Opera Theater Symphony Orchestra are obliged to play. In 2003, and for the first time since 50-year-old Cao started working for the orchestra, the Ministry of Culture provided 2 million yuan to buy new instruments. But they could still not afford the best quality. Their finest violins cost between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan, as compared to the best in the China Philharmonic Orchestra that cost 500,000 to 800,000 yuan.

Cao does not want to leave the orchestra because he loves his work. In order to support his family, he uses his spare time to teach at the Music Department of Remin University and acts as individual tutor to three or four students. One of his students takes a 10-hour train journey to Beijing every weekend just to attend his class. Cao’s other sources of income are from appearing in TV dramas and advertisements. As the classical music market shrinks, Chinese classical musicians must struggle to survive.

Promoting Classical Music – a Risky Business
“No market analysis has been made of the Chinese National Symphony Orchestra or China Philharmonic Orchestra. What is a suitable ticket price range? What do audiences expect from concert?” asks Zong Xiaojun, teacher at the Chinese Conservatory of Music and promoter of China’s classical music market. He adds, “We can only rely on our experience when estimating the market returns of each concert, which is very risky.”

Zong Xiaojun got his master’s degree in music and entertainment business administration from the University of Miami in 2001. He went on to establish a music business and art administration course at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. It offers classes in performance project planning, marketing, public relations development, ticket sales and stage management. “Much of what I learned in the US does not apply in China,” says Zong. “For instance, in the US I learned how to encourage elderly patrons of classical music to leave legacies in their wills to orchestras or other organizations and so reduce their family members’ inheritance tax. But there are no such laws in China.”

Zong has tried his hand at arranging l musical events. He sponsored the Chopin Music Festival, which included a Chopin piano playing contest, a film show and exhibition on the life of Chopin. This big event was aimed at popularizing Chopin and classical music generally and was enthusiastically received by Chinese music circles. Ticket sales, however, were far lower than expected, and the festival just about broke even. “Every person in marketing considers costs, and I am no exception,” admits Zong, adding “Staging the Chopin Music Festival seemed a viable proposition as the cost of the piano contest was not high, Chopin is well known in China and the parents of the large number of children learning piano would want them to hear how it should ideally be played. But the response to the festival was nevertheless disappointing.” The Chopin Music Festival was, consequently, a one-off. Zong now proceeds more prudently in his classical concert promotion activities.

The market for classical music in China is, however, promising. In many large cities, the number of children aged from 3 to 10 learning piano playing is steadily increasing. Their parents take them to concerts and buy them classical music CDs to encourage them to learn. These children are, therefore, all potential consumers of classical music. Furthermore, in 2003, the average price of concert tickets in Beijing was slashed to 20 yuan from 80 to 50 to yuan and that of classical music CDs from 100 to 40 yuan.

There have also been highly successful commercial classical music events. Yu Long, music supervisor of China Philharmonic Orchestra, has organized seven International Music Festivals since 1998 in Beijing, performed by the finest orchestras in the world. Every concert achieved an 80 percent attendance. The aim of these festivals was to popularize classical music, promote cultural exchanges and attract government and enterprise sponsorship. But, as Zong Xiaojun says, “The most profitable sector of the classical music market is tutoring. Fees charged by music teachers can be as high as 500 yuan per hour, whereas in the US the tutoring fee charged by first violinists in the best orchestras is only about US$ 40. As the classical music market continues to shrink in China, some orchestras lower their ticket prices in the hope of attracting bigger audiences, but this is not a long-term solution. Even at such low prices, ticket sales are less than 50 percent.”

Pop music concerts take the lion’s share of the music market. The three or four pop music performances held in big stadiums every month attract hordes of fans that come to see their pop idols, as compared to classical music concerts, of which there are just one or two each month and plenty of seats to spare.

Zong believes that as regards saving China’s symphony market there are two alternatives: one, orchestras make their music more comprehensible to Chinese audiences less nurtured in the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and other masters than their European counterparts, and two, that composers should do as Tan Dun does and make their music more relevant to the lives and emotions of Chinese people.