The Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra performs under the baton of music director Jing Huan at its 15th-anniversary concert on July 24 at the Xinghai Concert Hall. [PHOTO BY XU LEI/FOR CHINA DAILY]
He Rui was relieved that he could rehearse again with the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra after finishing zhongkao, the grueling senior high school entrance exam. The top-tier, free-to-attend youth orchestra was created by the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in 2011, the same year the 15-year-old was born.
To commemorate the orchestra's 15th anniversary, a packed welcome-home reunion event and a sold-out concert were held on July 23 and 24 at the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra complex and the neighboring Xinghai Concert Hall. For over a decade, more than 2,000 students have been part of this unique orchestra and its affiliated elementary and junior programs since Yu Qikeng, former president of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, turned a formative idea into reality.
The July 23 reunion event was held in the fully lit grand rehearsal hall where all full-ensemble rehearsals take place. Alumni dressed in colorful attire joined current members who wore purple T-shirts featuring a "GSYO" monogram. With the youngest being just 12, nearly 90 percent of the orchestra members are still in middle school. Yu, gray-haired and in a black orchestra T-shirt, was seldom left alone, as groups of boys and girls asked him for photos.
Yu Qikeng (center), who built the youth orchestra from scratch, cuts a special birthday cake with orchestra executives, conductors, alumni, members and employees of the GSYO on July 23. [PHOTO BY WANG BIN/FOR CHINA DAILY]
Since July 2011, the youth orchestra and its joint programs have been enhancing music education among young school students. They have trained local youth in and near Guangzhou with a classical repertoire in a full orchestral setting guided by senior musicians from the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra.
Among the alumni, there are violinists who now hold PhD degrees in biomedical science in Bad Nauheim, Germany, and international relations in Boston, the United States. There are also woodwind and brass musicians who are in MBA programs in Chicago or working as investment bankers.
"Before joining the orchestra, I had never been a true music lover," says Long Junxiang, who was one of the earliest members of the youth orchestra.
In a video clip, Chen Jiayi, concertmaster of the GSYO from 2011-14, displays her orchestra memorabilia. [PHOTO BY WANG BIN/FOR CHINA DAILY]
In the summer of 2011, Long auditioned and became a member while still in sixth grade. She has kept playing as a second violinist throughout her years in middle school and her eight years at Sun Yat-sen University's Zhongshan School of Medicine—15 years in total.
"I've developed a deep connection with music during the countless rehearsals. The program led me into the vast world of a musical life," adds Long, who has also found a passion for chamber music recently. Joined by three orchestra members at the reunion event, she performed a moving first movement from Felix Mendelssohn's String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13.
To enter the program, students' families don't pay any tuition fees, which were previously covered by government funding. Despite this, the training is actually more rigorous than other extracurricular orchestral programs. The students, selected from thousands of applicants, need to learn fast and bring out their best.
Over the years, under its music director and established conductor Jing Huan, the youth orchestra has performed a classical symphonic repertoire from Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche to Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite, as well as subtle contemporary works by renowned composer Chen Qigang. The program has attracted collaborations from celebrated artists like cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Wang Jian, composer Tan Dun, conductor Yu Long, and pianist Zhang Haochen.
Members of the GSYO perform Zequinha de Abreu's Tico-Tico no Fubá at the reunion event. [PHOTO BY XU LEI/FOR CHINA DAILY]
At the reunion, members shared fresh memories of the 2023 tour at Barcelona's L'Auditori concert hall, where local audience members left their seats and danced to the orchestra's carnivalesque performance of Zequinha de Abreu's Tico-Tico no Fubá. Others remember the awe of performing under The Apotheosis of Music fresco ceiling at the Hungarian State Opera House, painted by 19th-century artist Károly Lotz.
"It's not what you can learn from books," says Li Qingfeng, associate principal horn of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and a mentor of the youth orchestra for more than a decade.
"Plus, the orchestra also serves as a youthful ambassador for Guangzhou and China," Li adds. "Many of them have rehearsed together since primary school. Now, they are attending different middle schools on weekdays and playing Strauss and Shostakovich together on the weekends. How rare is that!"
The youth orchestra has been invited to tour the Asia-Pacific region and Europe, performing at prestigious venues such as Tokyo's Suntory Hall and Berlin's Konzerthaus Berlin. It also received a sought-after invitation from Martin Engstroem, founder of the world-famous Verbier Festival in the Swiss Alps. After watching their recorded performance, Engstroem wrote and invited them to perform in summer 2023, according to the orchestra.
"Just look at the Alps," Li recalls telling his horn students who visited Verbier and shared the stage with renowned cellist Wang Jian for Chen Qigang's Reflet d'un temps disparu. "Now you see why Richard Strauss wrote for 20 horns on and off the stage in his An Alpine Symphony."
The audience reacts to a musical interpretation by the GSYO on July 24. [PHOTO BY XU LEI/FOR CHINA DAILY]
In many respects, the youth orchestra's 11 musical seasons and tours since 2015 are its distinct features, but due to some inevitable financial difficulties, the orchestra has not toured overseas since 2024.
However, talent cannot be ignored. At the July 24 concert at Xinghai Concert Hall, the orchestra played with panache before an appreciative audience. Featuring Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47, the orchestra collaborated with 18-year-old violinist Zhang Aozhe, who rose to fame after winning the 58th edition of the Premio Paganini International Competition in 2025.
On stage, both Zhang and music director Jing Huan paid special tribute to individual student musicians who played brilliantly under pressure that evening. "This is not just a concerto, but a symphonic work," said Jing, speaking of Sibelius's violin concerto. "It's a real testament to the tenacity of this youthful group, and it's simply astonishing that a group of serious musicians entering diverse college majors are playing Sibelius on stage."
The GSYO members demonstrate their versatility before an audience during the 15th-anniversary concert at the Xinghai Concert Hall. [PHOTO BY XU LEI/FOR CHINA DAILY]
The student musicians demonstrated their versatility by opening the concert with the heroic tone poem Finlandia, written by Sibelius around 1900. Then, in the second half, they brilliantly displayed the magical elements in selections from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and the frantic absurdity in the Allegro movement from Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 in E Minor.
After the Guangzhou concert, the orchestra toured Zhuhai and Dongguan in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, showcasing the same program, although typhoon precautions canceled their performance at Shenzhen Concert Hall. The anniversary will come to a grand finale at the Macao Cultural Center in September, as youth orchestras from Guangzhou and Macao stage a joint concert.
He, a flutist in the orchestra and a student from Guangzhou Tieyi Middle School, did not make it to the concerts this time. But back in April, he wrote a four-minute composition on his computer and posted it online. The work, titled Five Thousand Years of Chinese History, attracted 3 million views within one week.
Tens of thousands of likes and comments filled up He's account. The musically talented student had to write a comment to calm his fans: "I've banned myself from social media before the exam (in June). Everyone has been so generous toward my work. I shall return."
And he did. After the big test, in which he scored 721 out of 810, he posted new works for his flute and his home piano.
After all, as cellist Yo-Yo Ma said, this youth orchestra is nurturing citizens of the future. In early January 2020, Ma performed at various Guangzhou landmarks for the public, joined by both the youth orchestra and the affiliated junior and elementary ensembles. This summer, auditions are underway for the new 9- to 19-year-old members of this legendary group.
