New York’s Juilliard School outpost in China, Tianjin Julliard School, caters to nation’s love of classical music
- The famous music school in New York opened its first overseas outpost in 2020, tapping what its director says is the huge interest in classical music in China
- Young students from all over China travel hours by train to the school in northeast China every weekend to attend classes
Late last year, students at the Tianjin Juilliard School – the first overseas outpost of the prestigious performing arts conservatory in New York – were shown the 1980 Oscar-winning documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China.
The film covers the violin virtuoso’s historic visit to China in 1979, and the screening was intended to illustrate the evolution of classical music education in China, says Tianjin Juilliard’s executive director and chief executive, Alexander Brose.
“The documentary records Stern’s trip to see what the classical music world was like in China 40 years ago,” he says. One of the students who plays the violin for Stern in the documentary, Li Weigang, teaches at the Tianjin Juilliard School, Brose says.
Much has changed in China over the past four decades, but Brose says the level of commitment and investment some Chinese families put into their children’s classic music education remains profound.
“A 12-year-old Tibetan girl, a violinist, flies [over three hours] from Qinghai province every Friday with her parents and goes back home on Sundays,” he adds. “Other students take the train every weekend from Changsha (journey time 5.5 to 7.5 hours), Changchun, Chengdu (journey time 7.5 to 10 hours).”