1990: Starting from Baojia Street

After the performance of "Bauhinia March" ended, Zhou Yan smiled and wiped the sweat from his forehead, looking extremely tired.

The originally excited audience started laughing when they saw his actions.

Music fans who are familiar with Zhou Yan know that Zhou Yan is not an introverted person. During previous concerts, he would often joke with the audience to liven up the atmosphere.

But everyone can still see that Zhou Yan is in a good mood today and is even acting funny.

When everyone had laughed enough, Zhou Yan put down the triangle, picked up the bamboo flute again, and without saying anything, raised his hand and played the melody of "Bauhinia March".

A bamboo flute solo cannot naturally be compared with a symphony, but when everyone suddenly heard the sound of the bamboo flute, they felt refreshed.

Mainly because everyone was happy to see Zhou Yan playing the bamboo flute.

Zhou Yan did not play this song for too long. After thirty seconds, the melody suddenly changed and became "Yearning Across Time and Space".

Another famous bamboo flute song!
The audience cheered. Among Zhou Yan's many works, "Yearning Across Time and Space" is very popular, especially among bamboo flute lovers.

Many of Zhou Yan's works are suitable for bamboo flute performance, but this one is the one that enthusiasts like to play the most.

Sounding good is one reason, but the main reason is that it is easy to get started.

"Journey to the West Fantasy" is also very popular, but everyone just likes to listen to it, but not many people have the real ability to master "Journey to the West Fantasy".

There is also Zhou Yan's early work "Fragrance in the Sky", which is also difficult to play and is not suitable for ordinary enthusiasts at all.

Therefore, "Yearning Across Time and Space" can be regarded as a "famous bamboo flute song" in recent years.

However, this also has a disadvantage, that is, many people learn to play the bamboo flute specifically for this piece of music, and then do not lay a good foundation, and only practice this piece of music. It may take them several months to master this piece of music.

Once I have mastered the piece, I will go and perform it.

Over time, everyone discovered that most people who played this piece of music had poor basic skills and wanted to learn quickly.

When Joey Wong heard "Yearning Across Time and Space", her eyes gradually became blurred, and her thoughts followed the moving melody and flew to the night a few years ago when Zhou Yan played this song for her for the first time.

She witnessed the release of this song, and this song is also an important memory between the two.

Time flies so fast, Joey Wong couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

Back then, she and Zhou Yan first met during the filming of the movie "Green Snake". In her eyes, Zhou Yan was just a "non-professional actor" who had just debuted, a shy little brother who even had to be taught by herself for kissing scenes.

At that time, she could never have imagined what would happen between her and Zhou Yan.

However, looking back, these few years seem to be too short for Zhou Yan's development.

Apart from Zhou Yan, I'm afraid there is no one else who can develop from a college student who has not yet graduated to where he is today in just a few years.

Zhou Yan did not finish playing the entire "Yearning Across Time and Space". He only played it for about forty seconds, and then the melody changed again and switched to another song.

“It’s The Distant Journey.”

Someone in the audience whispered the name of the song.

"Distant Journey" is also a "famous bamboo flute song", but compared to "Yearning Across Time and Space", fewer people play this song, because compared to the bamboo flute solo, this song is richer and better-sounding.

This is a New Age song with a lot of electronic synthesized sounds, which is somewhat similar to "Memories of the Forbidden City". It would be a bit worse if it were played solo.

Of course, whether a solo sounds good or not also depends on one’s level.

If an ordinary amateur plays it solo, the meaning will be much worse, but when Zhou Yan plays it, it sounds much better.

For an instrument like bamboo flute, the same piece of music can sound like two different pieces of music if you use different breath techniques.

Similarly, Zhou Yan did not finish playing the entire song, but quickly changed to another song.

“It’s ‘Borrowing Cucumbers’.”

Some people recognized it as "Borrowing Cucumber" from "Jiangjuntuo Suite".

In fact, there is no so-called "Jiangjuntuo Suite", but "Borrowing Cucumber" comes from the documentary "The Distant Journey", which contains a total of four songs, namely "Nightingale", "Forever Together", "The Distant Journey" and "Borrowing Cucumber".

Loyal music fans often watch that video tape over and over again, listening to the four songs together, so everyone privately likes to call these four songs the "Jiangjuntuo Suite."

So far today, three of the four pieces in the "Jiangjuntuo Suite" have been played, leaving only "Nightingale".

After finishing "Borrowing Cucumber", Zhou Yan played solos of "Song Lian", "Guanghan Palace" and other songs one after another.

This section is Zhou Yan's bamboo flute solo.

Music fans have always liked to listen to his bamboo flute solo, and this time they really enjoyed it.

After the bamboo flute solo part ended, Zhou Yan did not put down the bamboo flute, because the next song was "Journey to the West Fantasy" which was mainly played by bamboo flute and erhu.

The bamboo flute playing technique in "Journey to the West Fantasy" is very difficult. Even a layman can hear that the skills used in it are far superior to those of the previous solo songs.

In comparison, the solo songs just played can only be considered as warm-ups.

……

Soon, it was nine o'clock in the evening and the regular time of the concert was over.

Although the concert lasted two hours, the audience was still not satisfied and they sang an encore after Zhou Yan left the stage.

Zhou Yan did not disappoint everyone. After resting backstage for two minutes, he appeared on the stage again.

Afterwards, Zhou Yan went down seven times and was called back seven times. Every time he came up, he would perform a song for everyone.

Until the eighth time, no matter how the audience requested an encore, he never came up again.

By this time, it was almost ten o'clock in the evening. The seven encores had taken more than fifty minutes.

After ten minutes of encore, Zhou Yan still did not show up, and the audience reluctantly began to leave.

In fact, according to past practice, after Zhou Yan’s concert ended, he would appear outside the venue with some performers to perform a few extra songs for the audience who did not buy tickets.

However, the entrance to the Temple of Heaven was too crowded today, leaving no room for Zhou Yan and his team to perform, so this session was cancelled.

The audience inside walked out of the Temple of Heaven in an orderly manner, and the audience outside also began to disperse slowly.

However, the entrance to the Temple of Heaven was still very lively. Many reporters at the scene began to stop people for interviews, mainly stopping the audience coming out, wanting to ask them about their feelings.

Like other reporters, Linda was busy stopping the audience from coming out.

The audience was quite easy to stop. They came out of the theater still having fun and responded actively when they heard about the interview.

But Linda doesn't speak Chinese, so she can only try her luck and see if she can stop an English-speaking audience member.

She stopped several people in a row, but either they ignored her because she was a foreigner, or they wanted to help but didn't understand English at all.

Finally, she stopped two audience members who could speak English, but they were also foreigners. "Wow, you're from Billboard."

The two men were quite surprised when they saw Linda's work badge.

Linda smiled and said, "Well, I'm Linda, a reporter from Billboard. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Of course no problem."

"Where are you from?"

"I'm from New York and he's from Chicago."

Linda nodded. "Did you come to Yanjing specifically to watch the Forbidden City Concert?"

"Of course, we came here specifically for the concert."

"How did you get the tickets?"

"These are free tickets from the Little Bear Bookstore for an event, but unfortunately there is only one show, so we won't have any tickets for the next two days."

"Are you going back tomorrow?"

"Of course not. We will come to the venue tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to listen to the music outside. We will also play in China for a few more days later."

"If you want to listen outside, you'd better come early, otherwise there won't be a good seat." Linda said with a smile.

"It doesn't matter. Even if we can't listen to it outside, we can watch it on TV in the hotel. I heard that this concert will be broadcast live."

"It is indeed live, what do you think of today's concert?"

"It was a very good experience. I've seen Y's concert in New York before, and it was Field's first time to see his concert. We both thought it was great and worth coming all the way here. You know, holding a concert in such an old building with a historic atmosphere is a meaningful thing in itself..."

Linda didn't expect that she was so lucky. She met two fellow villagers who were both very talkative. She didn't need to guide them at all. These two people could talk a lot on their own, and they all hit the nail on the head.

They first praised the stage effects of the concert, then praised the atmosphere on the scene, and of course, they also praised the orchestra and Zhou Yan's performance.

The only regret is that they don’t understand Chinese, so they can only enjoy the music but can’t understand what Zhou Yan said, which reduces a lot of fun.

They also said that they would definitely learn some Chinese if they have the chance in the future. They also hoped that the videotape of the concert would be available with English subtitles.

After interviewing both of them, Linda felt that she had almost enough content.

However, she did not rush to leave work, but continued to look among the crowd, hoping to find a local audience who could speak English.

Suddenly, Linda's eyes lit up because she saw an acquaintance.

"Jessica!"

Linda waved to the crowd.

Jessica and Hardison were walking out with the group. After listening to the entire concert, they were still excited and were still talking about what happened at the concert.

Suddenly she heard someone calling her name. She looked in the direction of the voice and saw Linda waving at them excitedly.

"It's Linda."

Hardison also saw Linda, "She's here too."

Jessica smiled and said, "She is a reporter for Billboard. It makes more sense for her to be here than for us to be here."

As they talked, they walked in front of Linda.

"What a coincidence, Jessica, Hardison, you are also in Yanjing."

Hardison smiled and said, "We certainly can't miss such an important concert. Were you sent here on a business trip by your magazine?"

"Well, I'm on a business trip. Do you have tickets for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow?"

"Yes." Hardison nodded.

“You are so lucky.”

Hardison smiled and said that they were not lucky, but relied on their financial ability.

In fact, they are not only unlucky, but also have quite bad luck, otherwise they would not spend so much money.

"You didn't go in?" Jessica asked.

"My colleagues are in, I'm outside. What do you think of today's concert?"

“This was undoubtedly an outdoor concert of a very high standard, excellent in every way. Of course, there was only one problem.”

"what is the problem?"

"There are too few open seats and tickets are too hard to buy."

Linda smiled and said, "Perhaps this is also an advantage."

Although everyone complains that tickets are hard to buy and that more seats should be available, everyone knows that if there are too many spectators, the effect on site will definitely be worse.

Therefore, having fewer open seats is also an advantage.

"That's because there are not enough open sessions." Jessica said with a smile.

"That's indeed a shortcoming." Linda nodded. "Music fans certainly hope that Y can hold concerts every day, preferably for 365 days a year. That way we won't have to worry about not having concerts to listen to. Next question, what do you think of "March of the Bauhinias"? "

"Bauhinia March?" Hardison looked confused.

“It’s the new song,” said Linda.

"Oh, is that new song called 'March of the Bauhinias'? We don't understand Chinese, so we only know there is a song we haven't heard before, but we don't know its name."

"Because Hong Kong is returning this year, Y composed this song. Bauhinia is the city flower of Hong Kong and can represent Hong Kong."

Hardison suddenly realized, "No wonder this song is so inspiring, it was created for this purpose. I like this song very much. When we heard this song, Jessica and I were very excited, and the other audience members were also very excited."

In fact, Hardison and Jessica were a little confused about why the audience was so excited. Although this song can indeed stir the emotions of the audience, the reactions of some audiences are really too exaggerated.

Now, after listening to Linda's words, they finally understood why the audience reacted so strongly.

It turns out that they had different emotions when listening to this song.

Jessica took over the conversation, "The rhythm of this song is very strong. Although I didn't know that this song was related to Hong Kong's return, I could feel the power of resistance when I heard this song. The bamboo flute solo by Y at the end was also very nice. We have watched his concerts several times, and this is the first time I have seen him play solo for such a long time. That solo alone is worth the price of the ticket."

Linda smiled and said, "Today's concert will be broadcast live. I heard that the video tape and CD will be released soon. I believe they will be very popular." (End of this chapter)