US-CHINA MUSIC INSTITUTE

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard Conservatory of Music, in partnership with the Central Conservatory of Music, China, presents the sixth annual China Now Music Festival at Bard College and Jazz at Lincoln Center from October 2-8, 2023. This year's theme focuses on the idea of building a musical bridge between China and the United States through music. Led by music director Jindong Cai, festival concerts will be performed by the innovative Bard East/West Ensemble, featuring a unique mix of Chinese and Western instruments, and The Orchestra Now. Each program will explore musical intersections between the US and China in the past, present, and future. 

TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION AT BARDUSCHINAMUSIC.ORG/THE-BRIDGE-OF-MUSIC

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music, China, presented the 2022 China Now Music Festival, “East of West”, in celebration of our first five years of partnership and collaboration. The festival featured five major symphonic and operatic concerts held in New York City and in Upstate New York. Exciting new and rarely heard musical selections highlighted the cross-currents between China and the West, both in contemporary classical music and in artistic movements of the recent past.

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In its fourth season, the China Now Music Festival showed itself to be a leading force in introducing music from contemporary China to the United States and in promoting musical exchanges between the US and China. This festival continued to pursue its vital mission while broadening the scope to include the voices of a wide array of Asian American composers, with the aim of exploring their importance in contemporary American music and society.

The 2021 festival arrived in the midst of a particularly challenging time, shadowed by the global pandemic and a rise in anti-Asian discrimination and violence. The repertoire reflected how Asian American composers responded to the moment, as well as to the historical reception of Asians in America.

Featuring composer-in-residence Huang Ruo, and ensemble-in-residence the Del Sol Quartet, along with many more composers and musicians, the 2021 China Now Music Festival connected culture, history, contemporary society, and the arts through a vibrant series of musical programs and discussion.

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The year 2020 marked the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Celebratory events have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where classical music enjoys a huge following among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or re-imagined. As China began to reopen, Beethoven once again took center stage. 

The third annual China Now Music Festival provided a window into celebrations happening in China during 2020, as well as exploring Beethoven’s enduring legacy during the changing politics of the 20th century and China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events were presented online and free with registration. View the festival website for more information.

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The second annual China Now Music Festival celebrated milestones in the history of U.S.-China relations through music. Highlights included the world premiere of a symphonic oratorio by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Zhou Long honoring Chinese workers on the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and a multimedia musical portrait of renowned diplomat Wellington Koo.
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The festival featured the world premiere of Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, a symphonic oratorio by composer Zhou Long and lyricist Su Wei that was commissioned by the US-China Music Institute and the Center for East Asian Studies and Chinese Railroad Workers’ Project at Stanford University. Jindong Cai talks about the Bard–Stanford collaboration in an article for Stanford Live. Read the artickle

The inaugural season of the China Now Music Festival in 2018 featured U.S. and world-premiere works by some of the most important Chinese composers of our time, performed by Bard College's The Orchestra Now and conducted by Jindong Cai. 
Performances included Tony Fok’s moving oratorio ‘Ask the Sky and the Earth’ about China’s ‘sent down youth’ during the Cultural Revolution, as well as symphonic works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long, Ye Xiaogang, Guo Wenjing, and more.
Co-presented by the Central Conservatory of Music, China.
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