China III

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John Williams and Gerald Garcia - China Tour September 24th - October 6th 1997 PART III

Oct.3rd We visit the Great Wall and the Ming tombs and go to a reception in the evening, hosted by Mr.Xie Xiaonai, Vice Chairman of the China International Culture Exchange Centre and Economic Consultant to Shandong Province and Yangzhou City. We exchange speeches of mutual admiration, and have a meal consisting entirely of duck. Popular Chinese pastime	Oct.4th We visit the Summer Palace which is very busy as it is the period of the National Liberation - Tian An Men Square is thronged with kite flyers and people enjoying themselves. In the evening we give a concert in the Beijing Concert Hall which was sold out. Twenty or so Japanese have flown over to hear us, and join in the meals and parties. We also met up with British composer, virtuoso recorder player and cricket fan Richard Harvey in Nanjing. We asked if he could join us in the encore, but were told that he needed a work permit! At the concert I had a welcome surprise in that the man from the Brtish Council was Martin Davidson, whom I had last met ten years ago when I visited Beijing for the first time.
Ali eating
Oct.5th We visited the Forbidden City early in the morning to avoid the crowds and in the afternoon had lunch with Martin Davidson and various people in the arts.Later we taught at the Central Conservatoire. All the students were Chen Zhi's pupils and two were outstanding : the younger, Ah Mong, was only thirteen but had just arrived back from a guitar competition in Alessandria where she won second prize, and the older, a seventeen year old, Ah Fei was showing promise as a mature interpreter - I had met her two years previously. John and I had slight reservations about the repertoire, which was almost exclusively from the Romantic Period, but we were to see another side of their playing later on at the "guitar party" in the evening. We also learned that their teacher, Cheng Zhi did not play the guitar , but was an accordionist!	In the evening there was a farewell party for us. The evening started with a speech from Madame Lu Hongsheng followed by intimidatingly good performances of Paganini and Domeniconi by the two young players, Ah Mong and Ah Fei. Ah Mong then played the first movement of a Giuliani concerto with a wonderfully expressive string quartet. It was then our turn! The formalities out of the way, we then had various Japanese coming up to play (there was even a karaoke type trio with the famous guitar maker, Kohno and two friends!), and I played a duet with English guitarist and teacher, Alison Bendy who was accompanying us on the journey. Our other companion, Kathy Panama, was in charge of the video camera. As a finale, I had brought some guitar quartets with an international flavour - Hungarian music arranged by a Swedish teacher! This was great fun and I ended up conducting John and Richard, who played the first two parts!

Farewell to the Great Wall

Oct.6th

We take the morning flight for Hong Kong after fond farewells.

• Link to info on CHEN ZHI, the most important guitar teacher in China this century - probably - we met him in Beijing

 

• E-mail to Philip Shen, who is a keen guitarist in Shanghai and would welcome correspondence from guitarists around the world

 

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