A relationship of note

"Back then, I didn't realize how important his visit to China would be for me personally, as well as to the classical music scene in China. I just started to play and I heard Stern saying something to the film crew, who started rushing around, putting lights on to film my performance," recalls Wang, who learned to play cello at the age of 4 with his father, also a cellist. "I didn't stop. I just continued. What really surprised me was how he yelled very loudly, 'bravo'."

"Now, when I look back at the film, I do think it was very important, because it captured a moment in Chinese history where everything changed," Wang says. "We are all benefiting from that change, and the fact that classical music has become very important in China."

In 1987, Joseph W. Polisi, president of New York-based Juilliard School at the time, led the Juilliard Orchestra on its first tour of China, visiting six cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Founded in 1905, the school has trained some of the world's best artists, including Van Cliburn, Renee Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma. It has enrolled students from China since the 1920s.

"We brought a large orchestra. We got really large repertories, like The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky and Beethoven's Symphony No 3. Audiences were quiet and polite, and later, I was told that they were totally engaged," recalls Polisi during the online symposium, who led the orchestra upon it return to China on a 2008 tour that included a concert collaborating with students and faculty members of the Central Conservatory of Music at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

"China changed a lot from 1987 to 2008. When we arrived in 1987, there were bicycles rather than cars. When we arrived in 2008, the NCPA just opened and we were one of the first performing ensembles to play there," says Polisi.

The relationship between the school and China continued in 2015 when Peng Liyuan, the wife of President Xi Jinping, visited the Juilliard School in New York on Sept 28, 2015, while accompanying Xi on his weeklong state visit to the US.

As the school's sixth and longest-serving president, it was Polisi who welcomed Peng. Later, the plan to launch a Tianjin campus was announced.

In October, Polisi, 74, returned to China once more to attend the dedication ceremony of Tianjin Juilliard School campus, which broke ground on June 15, 2017 and opened in fall 2020. It offers US-accredited, full-time master's degrees in orchestral performance, chamber music and collaborative piano, as well as programs for pre-college students.

"Roots grow in really good soil. China has done incredible cultivation of its classical music soil over the last 40 years. Here, we want to train and develop the next great musicians and to serve as a cultural bridge," he says.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn