1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Zhou Yan certainly did not say this to belittle those concerts, but in his opinion, many concerts were no different from students' classroom assignments, except that they were held in a more formal venue.

Graduation works are still worth watching, as the students have at least prepared for a long time, and the level of senior students is naturally higher.

But the level of some lower grade training class reports is very average, and the level of each session is different, depending on whether the students are adequately prepared.

These concerts are not intended to provide high-level performances, but are mainly to train students' stage skills. Sometimes they are also organized by teachers to test students' learning outcomes.

When teachers go to watch these kinds of concerts, they basically find fault with their students.

So it is normal for this kind of concert to have problems.

When Zhou Yan brought Joey Wong into the concert hall, he first glanced at the stage. Without looking closely, just by looking at the age structure of the orchestra members, one could tell that it was not the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra, but the school's China Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Compared with the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra, the China Youth Symphony Orchestra is of a lower level because most of its members are students.

The symphony orchestra was taking a break, and conductor Ye Guangjie and Sun Dong were standing on the edge of the stage chatting.

As soon as he saw Zhou Yan, Sun Dong smiled and said, "I said he was coming."

Ye Guangjie also smiled, "Teacher Zhou, I thought you weren't coming today. Your works are not included in the list of teachers' works in your composition department this time."

Zhou Yan replied with a smile, "The key is that there are no new works."

"You are just being modest. Didn't you just win the second prize at the Sun Yat-sen Birthday Concert a few days ago? That award is very important. How about giving Xu Sanguan to our troupe if you have the chance?"

"No problem." Zhou Yan looked around the stage and asked, "Did your group receive any good talents this year?"

Ye Guangjie suddenly became alert, "Teacher Zhou, you are not here to poach my employees, are you?"

You can't blame him for being nervous. The Youth Piano Orchestra is too competitive right now. If Zhou Yan wants to poach people, they can't stop him.

Their China Youth Symphony Orchestra mainly takes advantage of the name and is a school-affiliated orchestra, but its overall competitiveness cannot be compared with that of the Piano Youth Orchestra. After all, the Piano Youth Orchestra goes on tour abroad every year.

The principals of the youth piano orchestra are the envy of other students.

In addition to its fame, the benefits of the Piano Youth Orchestra are also too good. Basically, as long as you join the Piano Youth Orchestra, you can ignore the issue of livelihood in advance.

When the Piano Youth Orchestra was developing rapidly in the past two years, it became much more difficult for Ye Guangjie and his team to recruit new members. This year, the Piano Youth Orchestra has stepped up its recruitment efforts, and they are now doing better.

Compared with other orchestras directly under the school, the China Youth Orchestra and the Piano Youth Orchestra have a high degree of overlap. Both are mainly composed of students, so they are also greatly impacted by the Piano Youth Orchestra.

However, the Piano Youth Orchestra is now recruiting fewer students from school, and the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra has begun to feel the impact.

The predecessor of the China Youth Orchestra was the 1950 orchestra. They are inseparable from the Orchestra Department, so it is normal for Sun Dong to come here today.

Zhou Yan laughed, "We are all a band of brothers, we should help each other. Teacher Ye, you need to be more open-minded."

"Go to hell." Ye Guangjie rolled his eyes. "If you want to help each other, why don't you give it to us? I don't want much, just give me Ma Dongfang and Zhang Zuoquan. If you are really kind, you can also give me Li Biru and Yue Lin."

"Of course I am willing to give them to your group, but I have to ask their own opinion."

"If I could pull them over, why would I ask you?"

Among so many students, the one who made Ye Guangjie most uncomfortable was Yue Lin, because their group really lacked a commander.

Logically speaking, there is not much competition for the role of conductor, but the key is that there are few conductors trained in schools.

The conducting department only produces one or two conductors every few years, and people like Yu Feng don't stay in the school after graduation.

Sun Dong fanned the flames and said, "How about you, Director Zhou, go up and take a look. If you like any of them, just bring them to your orchestra. Old Ye will definitely let them go."

Ye Guangjie suddenly got angry, "I farted!"

Sun Dong covered his nose, "Loud farts don't stink, stinky farts don't make noises, your fart definitely stinks."

Wang Zuxian, who was standing behind Zhou Yan, couldn't help but chuckle when she heard what Sun Dong said. Ye Guangjie was about to argue with Sun Dong, but when he saw the female comrade was there, he stopped and said, "Sun Dong, you will suffer the consequences sooner or later."

Zhou Yan asked with a smile, "How many songs are there in this concert?"

"You are from the composition department and you come to ask me this question." Ye Guangjie muttered.

"From the composition department? He is now the deputy director of our orchestra." Sun Dong said with a smile.

"Yes, yes, your deputy director of the orchestra." Ye Guangjie glanced at Sun Dong, then said to Zhou Yan, "There are seven pieces in total, not long, but quite difficult. Zhou Yan, I'm not saying anything bad about your composition department, but you composition teachers really don't treat performers as human beings, and you write things that are too difficult. Especially Ye Xiaogang's piece, our team rehearsed for more than two weeks just for this one piece of his."

As he spoke, Ye Guangjie began to complain.

Such conflicts often occur between composers and performers. When composing, composers sometimes ignore the difficulty of performance and only consider their own music.

The point is that the level of these students in the youth symphony orchestra is not as good as that of top musicians, and they really find it difficult to perform some difficult pieces.

Zhou Yan smiled and comforted Ye Guangjie, "The song is difficult to write, but that's because the teachers in our department believe in your group's level. We made it so difficult because we know you can complete it. If we knew you couldn't complete it, how could we have written it like this?"

Ye Guangjie curled his lips and said, "Don't flatter us. If you write such a difficult song again, we won't perform it."

Zhou Yan nodded and smiled, "Okay, I'll go report this to Senior Brother Ye and the others and ask them to pay more attention."

"There's no way he can hear."

Ye Guangjie knew Ye Xiaogang too well and knew that it was impossible for Ye Xiaogang to change. He was just complaining and of course it was impossible for him to really go on strike.

In fact, it would be a good thing for the orchestra if the composition department wrote more complex pieces. Only by constantly challenging themselves with high difficulty can they improve their level.

Originally, the Composition Department was planning to ask the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra to perform this concert of new works by teachers, but Ye Guangjie went over and shamelessly asked for the job himself.

If he really wasn't allowed to act, he would be even more anxious.

There is no way, the market is like this, the composition department is just fearless. In the school, except for the conducting department, no other department can suppress the composition department, and the composition department has fewer people, unlike the composition department, which has so many people. After chatting for a while, Ye Guangjie had to lead the students in rehearsal, so Zhou Yan and Wang Zuxian ran to the stage and found a seat.

Sun Dong didn't leave either, and sat next to Zhou Yan.

He was quite familiar with this concert and introduced to Zhou Yan the repertoire that was being rehearsed.

The repertoire for this performance was all composed by young teachers from the Composition Department, mainly Ye Xiaogang, Tang Jianping and Guo Wenjing.

Needless to say, these people's strengths are outstanding. The Youth Symphony Orchestra also attaches great importance to this performance. I heard that some of the songs in this performance will also be performed during the New Year's Eve.

In other words, tomorrow's performance is a partial preview of the New Year's Eve concert.

After listening to a chamber music piece written by Guo Wenjing, Sun Dong said, "Director Guo's works in recent years have become more and more mature, and his style has become more and more distinct. This piece, Oracle Bone Script, uses Western composition techniques to express the Chinese musical context, artistic connotations and traditional culture, and has a very distinct personality."

Zhou Yan nodded. "Brother Guo and his group of composers are unique in their integration of the East and the West. This is their overall characteristic. Brother Guo's own works are eclectic and he advocates the principle of borrowing. He will use anything he thinks is good, and he uses it for exploration, which is particularly important. When he adopted folk tunes, he boldly used sounds outside the mode, and through these sounds, he canned the original pentatonic scale mode."

The golden generation of students from the Composition Department of CAFAM, including Guo Wenjing, Tan Dun, and Ye Xiaogang, all focused on the combination of East and West, and the combination of classical and modern.

This is not only a characteristic of their generation as a whole, but also the overall direction of domestic composers in recent decades, and Zhou Yan is one of them.

But everyone produces something different within this big framework.

Guo Wenjing's polyphonic writing is very brilliant, and to a large extent has departed from the polyphonic language style of Western classical music which is based on a simple third-overlapping interval structure.

When you put Guo Wenjing's works together with those of other domestic writers, you can clearly hear the difference between them.

If a composer wants to gain fame, he has to create something different. Otherwise, the audience won’t be able to tell that the work is yours. Wouldn’t the work be written in vain?

In comparison, Zhou Yan is a little worse in this regard, and he has not yet formed his own unique style.

Sun Dong looked at Zhou Yan with a smile, "Don't you consider doing more chamber music? Of course, I don't mean to say that your recent sketches are bad. In fact, the new century works you did in the early days are a good direction. The integration of oriental elements is very novel, and what is particularly valuable is that they can be appreciated by both the elite and the masses."

"Creation still depends on opportunities. Brother Guo has had more international contacts in the past two years, so his enthusiasm for chamber music creation is naturally higher."

"Well, this piece, Oracle Bones, was commissioned by the Netherlands Art Festival and premiered at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in June. This time the symphony orchestra reinterpreted it. I watched the new version, which is a little different from the previous one. Director Guo majored in violin, and the previous version was very good in the violin part, but the other instruments were a little weak. The new version makes up for it a little."

Many of Guo Wenjing's current works were created at the invitation of foreign organizations.

In fact, Zhou Yan has received quite a few commissions. For example, the British Akiti Quartet recently invited him to compose a quartet piece, and the American Kronos Quartet also extended an invitation.

Zhou Yan declined all these commissions as he really didn't have the time.

But when I have time later, I might consider writing some chamber music.

After discussing Guo Wenjing's music for a while, Sun Dong asked, "The official performance will be tomorrow night, will you come?"

"It depends on the situation." Zhou Yan replied.

Sun Dong said with a smile, "Do you want to accompany your girlfriend? Just bring her along when the time comes."

"She won't be here for long this time."

"Oh." Sun Dong nodded.

However, Zhou Yan did not deny their relationship, and Sun Dong also confirmed that this was Zhou Yan's partner.

Sun Dong was quite curious about Zhou Yan's partner. Not only was he curious, but probably everyone in the school was curious.

After all, Zhou Yan is different from ordinary colleagues. He is a big celebrity and is surrounded by scandals.

Although Sun Dong doesn't usually pay attention to the news, he knows that Zhou Yan has had scandals with at least Joey Wong, Zhang Manyu and Kudo Shizuka.

It’s just that Zhou Yan always kept to himself at school, and no “suspicious” woman had ever been seen around him.

This was also the first time Zhou Yan brought a girl to school.

Seeing that the girl next to Zhou Yan was wrapped so tightly, Sun Dong guessed that she must be a celebrity as well.

If this is one of Zhou Yan's rumored girlfriends, then this... figure is more like Joey Wong.

Of course, Sun Dong was just curious, not gossiping. If Zhou Yan didn't take the initiative to introduce him, he wouldn't ask.

After rehearsing a few songs on stage, the orchestra began to take a break. Zhou Yan was about to take Joey Wong away, but was called up by Ye Guangjie.

"Director Sun and Director Zhou from the Orchestra Department are here. Let them give you some comments."

Hearing what Ye Guangjie said, Zhou Yan rolled his eyes and thought that Ye Guangjie was really looking for trouble. Wasn't he afraid that he would go there and poach his employees?

Sun Dong smiled and pushed Zhou Yan, "Let's go, Old Ye has said it, let's go up and say a few words."

Zhou Yan had no choice but to nod, "Okay."

Seeing Zhou Yan coming up, the young people in the orchestra were very excited.

The musicians of the youth orchestra are mainly fresh students. Many of them have heard of Zhou Yan's name before they were admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music.

Sun Dong went up first and said a few polite words.

He is the deputy director of the orchestra and usually has more contact with students. However, when he is with students, he is not the type who gets along well and has fun together. Instead, he maintains the dignity of a teacher.

After Sun Dong finished speaking, he also said, "Let Director Zhou say a few words to you. This is the first time he has spoken to students since he became the deputy director of the Orchestra Department. You must listen carefully."

Zhou Yan curled his lips and took a step forward. "I have fewer classes in recent years, and I have none this year, so I am not as familiar with the students as before. However, many of you look familiar to me." (End of this chapter)