It was inevitable; someday, someone, somewhere would take notice and realize, “Hey there’s an awful lot of really good Chinese musicians in China,” and follow up by writing an article insinuating the inevitable arrival of China’s musical dominance in the realm of “Western Art Music”, for lack of a better term.

The thing is, a recent New York Times article extolling the growth of Classical music in China presents a gross oversimplification of something happening in Beijing and Shanghai, which together represent 3 percent of the Chinese population. We try so hard to understand China, to compartmentalize it, to cut it up into pieces your average “Western” reader can understand, that we start to see patterns that aren’t really there, because we’ve taken so much detail out of the picture. It’s kind of like looking at Monet’s famous “Japanese Footbridge” series via Google Earth, seeing only the green, and deciding Monet has gone minimalist. In other words, China’s current love affair with Western Classical music is not necessarily long term, or a fait accompli by anyone’s definition.

I have played in two orchestras in China, Changsha and Shenzhen. In both, most of the music we play is popular songs and arias from the most famous Italian operas (Cio Cio San’s final aria from Madame Butterfly, “Brindisi” from La Traviata, and “O Sole Mio”), waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr., and a lot of traditional Chinese music arranged for Symphony Orchestra. Well-attended and frequently performed, these concerts draw most of the orchestras’ revenues..

Both orchestras are permanently “for hire,” meaning they are automatically available for anyone who can afford to rent the orchestras for an evening. In this sense, we resemble chamber musicians from the 18th century rather than any professional orchestra in the United States or Europe, or even the Hong Kong Philharmonic. When the local army general wants a special Chinese music concert for his troops, that’s what we play. When China Telecom wants a New Year’s concert, that’s what they get, a Chinese music concert for Chinese New Year.

The subscription concerts, featuring more substantial repertoire, are rather poorly attended. Usually half of our very small concert hall is occupied, and it is unclear to me how many of those tickets are actually sold, and how many are given away to friends of the orchestra management, party members and their families, and others. Concert hall etiquette, though better than it was 4 years ago when I first took the stage in China, is still plagued by people talking, often loudly, on mobile phones, children occasionally running around the aisles with parents in frantic pursuit, and digital and video cameras everywhere.

On one occasion, I was performing the Dvorak cello concerto as soloist with the Changsha Symphony, when I noticed a little girl running back and forth in front of the front row during much of the lyrical second movement, while about ten or eleven camcorders remained trained on me the whole time. People also haven’t quite gotten the handle on clapping, meaning they don’t know when it is appropriate to do so, how loudly, or for how long. I have often seen a conductor walk on stage to clapping, only to have it die down completely by the time he has reached the podium, at which point the audience awkwardly starts clapping again when the conductor takes his bow. Conductors’ walking on stage to a deafening silence seems to be the norm in China, even in Shanghai, where I once attended a ballet version of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

One of the side-effects of Classical music’s culturally elevated status in Europe and America is that Classical musicians are generally treated by the general public a little bit like athletes. They don’t get paid as well, in most cases quite little, but they are treated with the same kind of mystical curiosity, as the “how” of what they do is a complete mystery. This results in a great deal of respect toward musicians, especially from orchestra managers. This is not the case in China, at least not in Shenzhen, (I didn’t spend enough time in Changsha to get a good feel for the situation there). I see it as a sign of disrespect that the Shenzhen Orchestra management, insofar as it is able to do so, does not give long-term schedules to its musicians. I also see signs of disrespect in the way the management repeatedly schedules the orchestra’s performances and rehearsals with little or no regard to the musicians’ state of exhaustion. It is common in Shenzhen for wind and brass players to be expected to play flawlessly and at full volume for more than 5 hours a day. The Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra once worked its musicians for 16 days straight with no time off, and frequently gives its musicians seven-day schedules.

I have a difficult time believing China, where I see musicians treated more like factory workers than skilled artists on a daily basis, is where the renaissance of Classical music will happen, simply because most people associate Classical music with Symphony Orchestras (chamber music is virtually non-existent except at the Beijing and Shanghai conservatories), and it will be very difficult to create a world-class orchestra if the kind of conditions that exist in Shenzhen exist elsewhere. Musicians aren’t factory workers, and you can’t make musicians produce quality work when they are exhausted, and deeply dislike and distrust their management. It is not enough for luthiers and shops to churn out intruments, and for schools to churn out virtuosi because, ironically, many of these instruments end up overseas, as do most of the virtuosi. These young talented musicians go overseas initially to study, but often to settle permanently, because the life of a Classical musician in America and Europe is frankly better than it is in China. Why else would Chinese orchestras hire foreigners, and there are many foreign musicians in China, to join their fledgling institutions? Surely a country of 1.6 billion residents and 10 million violin students (by New York Times estimates) could supply enough musicians to fill its orchestras several times over.

No, I think what we have here, the apparent flocking of youth to concerts (which I have yet to witness), the millions of students, and millions upon millions of pianos and violins and cellos, is a trend, and a localized one at that. I think Western culture has become chic for wealthy Chinese on a massive scale.

Many say Classical music is dying simply because it’s been decades since the Chicago Symphony doing Beethoven 5 has gone platinum. If we continue to talk about Classical music like it’s Pop music then yes, Classical music is truly dead: it’s been dead since the contemporaneous death of Rachmaninov and rise of Elvis. However, if we talk about Classical music as “Art music”, then it is quite alive and well thank you. There are plenty of young, talented artists who are breaking new ground, and creating new sounds with both traditional instruments, and some newer incarnations of the old favorites. Contemporary music of this kind has a very real purpose in keeping so-called “Classical music” alive for us in the West, and perhaps elsewhere.

However, there is currently scant evidence of this music in China. I am aware of a few people in Beijing, mainly expat composers, who are deeply concerned with and immersed in this very thing, and my kudos to them. Currently, however, China’s obsession is with churning out both virtuosos who play music from “the old masters”, and new instruments ostensibly for domestic, but primarily for foreign consumption.

Now, it’s true that you can’t introduce people to Classical music on brand new music, a lot of which does sound strange even to my ears, so in this sense it’s good that people are listening to the old masters. China truly is one of the last really open markets for Classical musicians. This is how I ended up here in the first place. Some people really want to listen to the stuff, so they need people to come and play it for them, and they’ll pay reasonably well for us to do just that. Furthermore, China is a very dynamic place right now.

But there are only so many renditions of “Brindisi” and Radetzky March you can hear (and play) before claims that China really likes Classical music start to sound hollow. I think China’s current obsession with Classical music is just an extension of that ubiquitous, and I might add fickle, fixation on everything Western. Classical music is trendy in China, nothing more.