1990: Starting from Baojia Street

There are actually activities every year for Sun Yat-sen’s birthday, but this year it falls on the tenth day, so there are more activities and it’s more lively.

This kind of anniversary is usually celebrated with more grandeur when it comes to the fifth, tenth, fiftieth or hundredth anniversary.

Logically speaking, the centenary of his birth should have been celebrated with the utmost grandeur, but in 66 the domestic situation was complicated and nothing was done.

In the past thirty years, there have been various situations, but nothing has been done about it, so this year is actually the most lively one.

The symphony competition is just one of many activities, and there will be many more to come. Compared with other activities, the symphony competition takes place earlier.

Logically speaking, Mr. Sun’s birthday is November 11, which is nearly two weeks away. However, there are many activities and we cannot hold all of them on that day, so naturally some of them are held in advance.

As for birthdays, there is nothing wrong with celebrating them earlier as long as you don’t postpone them.

Today's event is called a competition, but it is actually a solicitation activity. There are many similar solicitation activities.

All walks of life have shown enthusiasm for this matter. The academic community has academic seminars, the literary community has novel writing and poetry collections, as well as calligraphy and painting collections.

However, for the solicitation of other projects, there are rarely offline activities.

For example, the Chinese poetry collection is mostly organized by non-governmental organizations, and some magazines will also launch their own collections with generous prizes.

Many folk poets are willing to submit their works to those magazines. There is nothing shameful in pursuing money.

Regardless of whether it is an official solicitation or a solicitation by a private organization, basically they will find a time to announce the results of the solicitation. Private magazines can directly publish the selected works in their magazines, while the official will put the selected works together into a booklet and sell or give it away.

If it is a collection of poems and paintings, we might hold an exhibition.

Compared with other forms, the symphony solicitation scene obviously looks more high-end and classy, ​​and the cadres' families are more willing to participate.

However, poetry collections are closer to the general audience. Generally, the shortlisted works for poetry collections will be announced in advance, and then selected based on opinions from all parties.

Although the jury may not necessarily listen to the opinions of the general audience, this process still exists.

Unlike symphony competitions, the shortlisted works are not announced in advance, and the list of winners is announced directly on the spot.

Of course, there is a way to determine whether you are shortlisted.

The simplest way is to see if you have received an invitation from the organizing committee. As long as you have received an invitation, it most likely means you have been shortlisted. If you have not received an invitation, it is 100% certain that you have not been shortlisted.

This year marks the 130th anniversary of its founding, and there are 130 shortlisted works.

After these 130 works are shortlisted, theoretically all of them will receive awards, and the rest depends on what the award is.

The awards are divided into five categories. In addition to the first, second, third and fourth prizes, there is also an excellent award.

The so-called Excellence Award is nothing more than a consolation prize so that your trip will not be in vain.

The number of awards for excellence happened to be the largest, with half of the 130 works winning awards.

Of course, there is no way for the Excellence Award to be exhibited, and your name won’t even be mentioned on site, let alone take a photo with you.

Think about it, there are sixty or seventy pieces of music, and a lot of time would be wasted just on the registration list. If the authors were allowed to go on stage for photos, the duration of today's concert would have to be extended by at least half an hour.

There are no medals for the Excellence Award and the Fourth Prize, only a small certificate without a casing. After receiving the certificate, the person has to go back and spend their own money to get a casing for it.

Only when you win the third prize can you be considered to have some honor. Not only will you receive a certificate, but the official will also prepare a bronze medal for the winner. In other words, only when you win the third prize can you be considered to have won.

People in the industry are very enthusiastic about this selection. As long as you are shortlisted, no matter what award it is, it is a good honor, and it is not shameful to talk about it as an Excellence Award.

After all, for outsiders, they don’t know what the Excellence Award is and think it is something very impressive.

Zhou Yan sat down at his seat at 6:20, greeted Guo Wenjing, and then just sat there and thought about nothing.

The other people around were talking to each other, which was in stark contrast to Zhou Yan.

Many people at the scene came from other places. They had made the effort to come here, so naturally, like Shen Siyuan, they wanted to make some connections. This was also human nature.

After sitting for about twenty minutes, the man sitting on Zhou Yan's left turned around and smiled at Zhou Yan, "You are Zhou Yan, right?"

This man looked to be around 30 years old, which was considered relatively young at the scene. He had actually seen Zhou Yan several times and had always wanted to talk to Zhou Yan, but he only mustered up the courage now.

Zhou Yan turned to look at him, smiled and nodded, "Yes, I'm Zhou Yan, who are you?"

Seeing the smile on Zhou Yan's face, the other party introduced himself with a smile, "I'm Huang Canwen, from Shanghai."

Huang Canwen saw Zhou Yan sitting there with a blank expression just now, and thought that Zhou Yan was difficult to approach, so when he saw the smile on Zhou Yan's face, he was relieved.

"From your accent, you don't sound like you're from Shanghai, do you?"

"Yes, yes, yes. My hometown is Luzhou. I studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and stayed in Shanghai after graduation."

"Then you have been in Shanghai for quite a few years."

"Yes, in the blink of an eye, I have been in Shanghai for more than ten years. In a few years, I have been in Shanghai longer than I have been in Luzhou." Huang Canwen sighed, and then smiled and said, "Teacher Zhou, your family is from Jinling, right? Our hometowns are not far away."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Yes, it's not far. Which class of Shanghai Conservatory of Music did you attend?"

"I'm from Level 84," Huang Canwen replied.

"Level 84..." Zhou Yan thought for a moment and asked, "Do you know Li Honggang?"

Huang Canwen's eyes lit up. "Of course I know Senior Brother Li. He is a famous person in our school. However, we didn't meet much because when I entered the school, he was almost finished with his graduate studies. At that time, the Shanghai Quartet often performed outside and was not in school very often."

"Li Honggang is also my senior. I worked with him before when I was in school."

"You are actually working with Senior Brother Li?" Huang Canwen asked in surprise.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It's nothing strange, after all, Senior Brother Li was also one of the first batch of students after our Central Conservatory of Music resumed enrollment."

He glanced at Guo Wenjing who was in the same row and said, "The man who greeted me just now is Senior Brother Guo from our major. He is from the same class as Senior Brother Li Honggang and they have more contact with each other." Huang Canwen knew that Li Honggang studied for his undergraduate degree at the Central Conservatory of Music. He was surprised because he did not expect that Li Honggang and Zhou Yan, who were ten years apart in age, had actually worked together.

If Zhou Yan was told that he had worked with Li Honggang after graduation, he would not be surprised, after all, Zhou Yan had already become famous after graduation. However, Zhou Yan said that he had worked with Li Honggang while he was in school.

When Zhou Yan was in school, Li Honggang had already made a name for himself abroad, and the gap between their status was huge.

The Shanghai Quartet, to which Li Honggang belongs, is very famous in Shanghai, especially in their school, where it is a benchmark.

The Shanghai Quartet was officially established in 1983. All its members are students from their school. The group gained fame soon after its establishment.

Huang Canwen remembers that when he was a sophomore, the Shanghai Quartet won the second place in the Portsmouth International Quartet Competition in the UK.

This event caused quite a stir in their school at the time. After all, it was an international award, and the second place was very prestigious.

Since the establishment of the Shanghai-Shanghai Quartet, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music has also successively established many orchestras of the same type, still mainly quartets, but there has never been another one of the level of the Shanghai-Shanghai Quartet.

After all, students like Li Honggang are hard to find. Although Li Honggang and others are still students, their resumes are very extraordinary, especially Li Honggang's younger brother Li Weigang, who went abroad for training in his early years.

"Senior Brother Li should have been abroad in the past two years. Do you guys still keep in touch?" Huang Wencan asked.

Zhou Yan shook his head. "No, we haven't been in touch since we worked together that year. I just remembered it when you said you were in the 84th grade."

Huang Canwen sighed to himself, it turned out that geniuses do not appear suddenly. It seems that Zhou Yan was already a celebrity when he was in school, otherwise he would not have been able to work with Li Honggang.

"Have you performed the piece you submitted this time before? I've watched your concert videos, and I know many of your pieces."

“The piece submitted this time has not been performed before. It is a new piece.”

Huang Wencan was a little surprised. "Oh, it's a new work. I'm really looking forward to it. I have to say that you are confident and dare to submit a new work directly. I see that other people submit old works, some of which were created more than ten years ago. I have been writing mine for two or three years. I do have a new work on hand, but I didn't dare to submit it. You didn't write this new work specifically for this competition, did you?"

Zhou Yan smiled and shook his head, "No, it just happened to be a suitable subject, so I handed it over."

“I still envy…”

Huang Canwen just opened his mouth when a voice came from the speakers at the scene, "Hello everyone, the concert is about to begin, please try to remain quiet."

The host spoke and the scene immediately became quiet. Huang Canwen could only hold back the words he hadn't said.

The two smiled at each other, then turned to look at the stage.

After a while, a female host in a dress walked onto the stage holding a microphone.

"One hundred and thirty years ago, on November 1866, 11, a great pioneer of the democratic revolution was born. He was Mr. Sun Yat-sen. When he was born, the embers of the burning of the Old Summer Palace by the British and French forces had not yet dissipated, the Taiping Movement that swept across half of China had just subsided, and the Qing government was still trying to make a final struggle through the Westernization Movement..."

The host prepared a long speech, which basically summarized Sun Yat-sen's life.

It took seven or eight minutes just to finish reading this passage.

But no one is in a hurry, after all, today's event is held for Mr. Sun.

After the host finished reading the opening remarks, Xu Cong, vice chairman of the Music Association, also came on stage to deliver a speech. His speech was much simpler. After just a few words, he announced the official start of the event.

After the event started, the host announced, "Next, please enjoy the second prize-winning song "Nostalgia for Jinling", this song..."

Although it only won the second prize, it was quite impressive that "Nostalgia for Nanjing" was chosen as the opening song.

Xu Zhenmin, the author of "Nostalgia for Nanjing", was sitting in front of Zhou Yan's left. When the host announced that "Nostalgia for Nanjing" won the second prize, people around him whispered congratulations to him.

It is already very good to get the second prize. A total of more than 3,000 symphonies were received in this solicitation activity, and there are only six places for the first and second prizes combined.

Three thousand entries may sound quite ordinary at first, especially when compared with the selection of outstanding Chinese poems. It is said that this year's poetry selection received more than 14,000 works.

However, three thousand is already very impressive. After all, the threshold for symphonic works is much higher than that for poetry.

No matter how poor the quality of a symphony is, it is written by professionals. Unlike poetry, as long as you know Chinese characters, you can submit a work.

Because there are a large number of entries and many well-known composers in the industry have participated, the quality of this session is still quite high.

Zhou Yan had heard "Nostalgia for Nanjing" before. Today it was performed live by the Yenching Philharmonic Orchestra, but the performance was mediocre. After all, they must not have rehearsed this piece for a long time, so it was understandable.

After the performance of this piece of music, another vice chairman of the Music Association, Hu Zhaoyuan, came on stage and announced all the winning songs for the third prize.

When Hu Zhaoyuan was announcing the list, Zhou Yan noticed that Huang Wencan, who was sitting next to him, was very nervous and kept muttering to himself.

There are a total of twenty-four third prizes. As more and more songs were submitted, Huang Wencan became more and more nervous.

By the time Hu Zhaoyuan had finished reporting twenty songs, Zhou Yan secretly shook his head, fearing that Huang Wencan had little hope, as there were only four left.

Of course, there are second prizes and first prizes, but the probability of winning the first prize and the second prize is too low.

There are only six first and second prizes in total. Now Xu Zhenmin’s "Nostalgia for Nanjing" has taken up one spot, so there are only five left.

I guess Huang Wencan also knew that he had no hope of winning the first or second prize, so he kept his eyes on the third prize.

At this time, Huang Wencan was actually a little frustrated. He couldn't get the third prize, and the fourth prize and the excellent prize were no different to him.

But at this moment, Hu Zhaoyuan announced the 21st winning song.

"Goodbye Yangtze River, Huang Wencan."

"it is good!"

Zhou Yan heard Huang Wencan let out a low cry beside him. He was very forbearing, and even Zhou Yan couldn't hear the sound clearly.

When Zhou Yan heard Huang Wencan's name, he raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect that Huang Wencan would win the third prize. (End of this chapter)