New York Philharmonic Establishes Partnership With Shanghai

Philharmonic Establishes Partnership With Shanghai

China long ago emerged as a kind of promised land for classical music, and two of America's great orchestras are wading in with big projects and very different approaches. You could call one the Philadelphia flier and the other the Big Apple plod.

Long Yu is music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

The Philharmonic oboist Liang Wang in China in 2008.

The New York Philharmonic is planning to publicize on Wednesday a four-year partnership with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. It will include a 10- to 14-day residency in China and a stake in an orchestra training program. The Philharmonic's involvement in training will begin in the fall of 2014, after the details are worked out, and its residency is scheduled to begin the following summer.

Then there is the Philly way. The Philadelphia Orchestra beat the Philharmonic to the punch, descending on Beijing and provincial cities last spring with a menu of master classes, lessons, concerts, and visits to parks, schools and hospitals. The tour was part of a partnership with the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

But Philadelphia's venture was more improvised. It came together just eight months after being announced. A spokeswoman, Katherine E. Blodgett, called the visit a pilot project to test its plans. The Philadelphia Orchestra intends to return next spring and hopes that the residency will establish the foundation for a long-term relationship, she said.

Ms. Blodgett noted that the Philadelphia Orchestra was the first American orchestra to visit the People's Republic of China, in 1973, and returned in 2008 and 2010. The New York Philharmonic visited in 2008, while on its way to North Korea.

Explosion may not be too hyperbolic a word for the increase in concert halls, orchestras, instrument making and classical music study in China during the past decade. Audiences are growing in tandem. Many concert presenters are hungry for top international ensembles to fill the gleaming new auditoriums.

At the same time, with government determination to build culture as a form of national power, and willingness to spend on the effort, Chinese officials are happy to import Western cultural expertise. The home of the Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, announced nearly 17 months ago, for example, that it would become a paid consultant to developers of an arts complex in Tianjin, a city about 45 minutes by bullet train from Beijing.

The New York Philharmonic deal is unrelated to the Lincoln Center venture and stems partly from the energies of the conductor Long Yu, a central figure in the Chinese classical music scene. Mr. Yu, a Shanghai native, is music director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the China Philharmonic and of the Beijing Music Festival.

More crucial, he is music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, which paid the Philharmonic to share a concert with it in Central Park in July 2010. In addition to conducting the Shanghai orchestra in that concert, he led the Philharmonic in a Chinese New Year concert this year and will do the same on Feb. 12.

The Philharmonic first announced its partnership at a signing ceremony in Shanghai a full 16 months ago. The event received little attention in the Western press except for an account on WQXR's blog. The program was expected to begin in 2013 with the opening of a concert hall in Shanghai, WQXR reported. But the opening was delayed, and the project with it.

In recent interviews officials disclosed a few more details. A group of four or five Philharmonic members will spend a week, three times a year, working with students of a new orchestral academy in Shanghai. Teaching will also take place during the summer residency, which will include a number of Philharmonic orchestral and chamber performances. Some students may be brought to New York for extra training and to experience the “New York musical environment,” said the Philharmonic's executive director, Matthew VanBesien.

Students will be drawn from Asian countries, mainly China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, said Anastasia Boudanoque, an executive producer at CAMI Music, which is advising the Shanghai Symphony and represents Mr. Yu.

Mr. Yu said the academy would involve the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and would be modeled on the Berlin Philharmonic's training school, which is a feeder to the parent orchestra and provides continuity of musical traditions and substitute musicians. Scholarships for 30 to 50 musicians will be provided for the two-year program, he said. Philharmonic musicians will have a say in auditions.

“It's just a simple idea, to see how much we can help young musicians before stepping into professional work,” he said. One goal is also to counter the soloist mentality that predominates among many young Chinese musicians, he added.

The academy, Mr. Yu said, is just one of many pieces that China needs to complete its classical music solar system. Musicians abound, orchestras and halls are increasing, but the scene is weak in other elements, like professional managers, widely accessible ticketing systems, publicity machines and easy access to sheet music. Yes, there are audiences, he said, “but if we don't have a great system, they will stay at home.”

A version of this article appeared in print on November 14, 2012, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Philharmonic Establishes Partnership With Shanghai.