Classical Music at SUSTech

This is the start of a new category on my blog called “Campus Life”. I will recategorize some of my older posts to it. What is the purpose of my blog? Originally, a grant proposal asked me how I communicate my research to a non-expert audience. Starting a blog seemed like a blog looked like a good idea. Then later I used it for several topics about which I do not want to write a paper. Say, I cannot publish that Schrijver’s SDP bound does not seem to work for subspace codes, but I still want to tell people about. In particular since moving to China, people often ask me about how academic life here is. So let us also cover that. Today we will talk about the classical music at SUSTech.

Here I will briefly discuss the organization of classical music at SUSTech as well as all the concerts which I have witnessed or participated in since I joined in November 2023.

The Arts Center and the Music Club

Organizational aspects at SUSTech are still foreign to me, so I apologize for any inaccuracies in this paragraph. SUSTech has an Art Center which is responsible for managing arts, including music. At the same time there are many student clubs at SUSTech. For instance, there are a cocktail club and a coffee club. (Do not miss it when they have a stand! You might get good free coffee and a free cocktail!) Each September there is a big event on campus where all student clubs are presenting themselves. I will include some pictures of the recently founded SUSTech Big Band below. The event is named something like “Hundred clubs offensive/battle/campaign”, taking inspiration in the Hundred Regiments Offensive (百團大戰) during what is most commonly known in English as the Second Sino-Japanese War. Here a picture of the Big Band advertising itself:

There are several music related clubs and societies. There is a Chinese Music Society and a Western Music Society. The Western Music Society contains a symphony orchestra, a wind band, a string orchestra, a big band, and a choir. There is also a piano club. The SUSTech alumni club raises funds to finance a yearly concert which usually happens around the winter solstice.

Recall that SUSTech was only founded in 2015 and is a small university with only a little over 10,000 students. Many of these clubs are self-organized and often very recent. The founding of the symphony orchestra was an initiative by students many years ago. The big band got founded just one year ago since some students wanted to play big band music!

The Symphony and Choir Concerts 2023 and 2024

On the 23rd December 2023, the symphony orchestra played the following program (maybe in a different order):

Clarinet Concerto No. 1, Carl Maria von Weber, Movements 1 & 3.
The theme of Pirates of the Caribbean, Klaus Badelt.
《亮剑》组曲 (Liang Jian/Drawing Sword Suite, about the Second Sino-Japanese War)
《春节序曲》(Spring Festival Suite Overture)
《灯火里的中国》(China in Lights)

I have recordings, but quality-wise the SUSTech Symphony Orchestra is surely not the best university orchestra which I have played in. Thus, I will spare you the sound of it. That said, it is a lot of fun. And one of the things which I quickly learned in China is that taking pictures of everything is the most important thing. And while the music has room for improvement, people take much attention to visuals, so that everything looks nice. Here are some from the 2023 concert:

For the 22nd December 2024, we played the following. Here in correct order as my memory is still fresh:

Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, Mikhail Glinka,
Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63, Allegro ben Marcato, Sergei Prokofiev,
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18, Allegra Scherzando, Sergei Rachmaninoff,
A Kong Fu song with much “Hu” and “Ha” going on. From some Hong Kong Kong Fu movie. (I will add a link later if I find the name of the movie.)
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 “From the New World”, Antonín Dvořák
Two same Chinese songs as last year

Personally, I liked it more than the previous year. But this might have been subjective. In 2023 I used the very cheap bass double bass of the orchestra, while now I bought my own bass. Not perfect, but good. And in 2023 I had high expectations. By now I accept the university orchestra here for what it is. One is really spoiled with amateur orchestras in Germany, Belgium, Israel, and even Canada. Our piano play for Rachmaninoff was the piano teacher of the piano club and we bought the violin player externally. Both were excellent. I really liked the solo violin’s play.

Again, some pictures:

The Chamber Music Concert 2024

The second major event each year in the life of the symphony orchestra is the chamber music concert in summer. I played in a double bass quintet and in the newly founded big band. With the double quintet we played “Rains of Castamere” as on the Game of Thrones TV show and the Game of Thrones theme music. With the jazz band we played some classics. Here I feel comfortable linking the performance. I did not find the final version of the program, but I found a version which I was apparently unhappy with for typographical reasons:

Some pieces were really excellent. Some were probably not fully ready for performance. But, again, it was much fun. And the double bass quintet compensated all its musical flaws by looking the best, having little crowns and all. Consequently, we were chosen as the picture of the day by the SUSTech WeChat account:

Again, many pictures were taken:

Brahms & Beethoven Concerts

Several students in the piano club are very big Brahms fans. Thus, they wanted to organize a Brahms concert which they did in May 2024. Here I was asked very lately if I want to play Brahms’ lullaby. Which I did. I also gave an interpretation of the German poem and talked a little bit about the women in Brahms’ life. Which is of course very easy. Here the posters and a picture:

Then the same students wanted to do all the B’s (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms), so this year in early December we had a Beethoven concert. In general it was of lower quality, I feel, but my part was more ambitious. We practiced the second movement of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 2 for piano and double bass. It turned out very well. If there were a public video, then I would link to it. (Despite the fact that at some point a cleaning person comes in to clean the room.) This was maybe my most ambitious chamber music piece ever. But why this piece? Beethoven and Dragonetti, a double bass virtuoso, famously played it together, see this summary here. You can find a historically informed performance by Severiano Paoli here. Our own interpretation was probably equally influenced by Mstislav Rostropovich’s performance here. Just that my technique and our instruments are much inferior to the ones in these recordings.

Here an obligatory picture:

Now for next semester you would expect Bach, right? But no, the plan for the next semester is a Schubert concert. Let’s see how that will go …

Other Concerts (Anime, Lalaland)

As you might know (or not know), anime dominates Chinese youth culture. The subculture is usually referred to as ACG (Anime, Comics, Games). Logically, in the spring semester 2024 students organized the first ACG concert at SUSTech. Somehow I could not find a picture. But (unlike all the classical concerts) it packed. They repeated the same last December. This time I did not attend, but here I have a picture from one of the rehearsals. It shows the wind band:

Lastly, in October, just after the week off for the Chinese national holiday, there was a show organized by the student union to present various bands and clubs. Here I can show the string orchestra which played a string arrangement for one piece from Lalaland:

Vienna New Year Concert

The last thing to mention is that on the 1st of January, the students organize a viewing of the Vienna New Year Concert. While I am not the greatest thing of this concert, the mood during the public viewing is usually good and one can always make a bit fun of how they dress there. This year I was particularly happy about them playing the Ferdinandus-Waltz by Constanze Geiger. She composed it with 12!