For Asian Youth Orchestra, Mission Is More Than Just Music
By JOYCE LAU August 11, 2015
HONG KONG—Like all good youth orchestra conductors, Richard Pontzious is not always nice to his charges.
“Can't you count to five?” Mr. Pontzious, 71, said last month at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, during the Asian Youth Orchestra's first rehearsal for its 2015 season. Mr. Pontzious, who founded the ensemble 25 years ago in Hong Kong, pointed to the principal second-violinist, who put his bow up a bar too early, before turning his attention to a brass player with the wrong sheet music.
He then added: “Say, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Pontzious.' No, that's not funny. In a professional orchestra, you'd be out.”
Mr. Pontzious then addressed the room, filled with young musicians who were going to work together for the next two months. “There is no place to hide — not in my rehearsals,” he said.
The orchestra's 103 instrumentalists — chosen from more than 800 applicants, aged 17 to 27, from a dozen nations and territories across Asia — were in their first group practice. They had only a few hours to prepare for the “Nimrod” movement from Elgar's “ Enigma Variations” before a ceremony attended by corporate sponsors, government officials and celebrities.
For the following three weeks, these musicians would rehearse for nine hours a day. This Saturday, they embark on a tour across mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, playing for a total of about 20,000 audience members.
In past years, the orchestra has played at the White House, the Hollywood Bowl and Avery Fisher Hall, in New York. But for its 25th season, it is staying on home turf. Its anniversary gala at the Hong Kong Coliseum on Aug. 16 will feature about 600 musicians — 300 instrumentalists, including alumni, and 300 vocalists — performing a spirited rendition of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
On top of mastering Hayden, Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss and Shostakovich, the members of the youth orchestra will also have to learn how get along with colleagues from vastly different backgrounds, and how to navigate a tour that crisscrosses rival Asian states like Japan and China . Almost every year, the orchestra's general manager, Keith Lau, has to fix visa problems or get special permission for players trying to enter particular countries.
In May, the ensemble became the first orchestra to win the Nikkei Asia Prize in Japan for bringing the region together.
The Asian Youth Orchestra, founded in 1990 by the violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin and Mr. Pontzious, is similar to the European Union Youth Orchestra. However, that ensemble is organized by a pan-national government body, whereas its Asian counterpart is privately funded and left on its own to bridge Asia's border tensions. Mr. Pontzious said the spirit of the Asian group was closest to the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which is based in Seville, Spain, and whose goal is to bring together musicians divided by the politics of the Middle East.
The Asian players' education extends beyond the practice room. Touring musicians are housed with host families — an experience not always appreciated at first by young people struggling with other cultures or languages.
“It's traumatic for some orchestral members,” Mr. Pontzious said. “One Chinese player's grandfather had been killed by a Japanese soldier. Another Chinese girl turned to me when she was placed with a Japanese family and said, 'How do you think I feel?' But two days later, she was carrying the Japanese family's baby in her arms. This is a very common reaction.”
At the end of every concert, the musicians are introduced by their country or territory. And sometimes, this has rattled nerves. The 2012 tour was particularly tumultuous. The orchestra crossed China at the height of anti- Japan protests over disputed islands. In China , “tempers were igniting and heated insults were being hurled at anything and anyone Japanese,” Mr. Pontzious wrote at the time in The South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. The Japanese players were apprehensive, but still received warm applause from the Chinese audience.
Mr. Pontzious, originally from the San Francisco area, has seen many highs and lows in Asia since he moved to Taiwan in 1967. He was hired by the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983 and became one of the first foreigners to stay long term after the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976 and was a period when “bourgeois” Western instruments and sheet music were ritually destroyed.
“The conservatory was very damaged by the events of the Cultural Revolution,” he said. “The instruments were terrible. Kids had rubber bands holding together the keys on their clarinets.”
What he saw was far removed from today's China, home to gleaming new concert halls and celebrity soloists like Lang Lang, Yundi Li and Jian Wang. For Mr. Pontzious, the future of classical music is in Asia. “If you look at audiences in Europe, they are all elderly,” he said. “It's the opposite here. People are bringing babies to concerts.”
The Asian Youth Orchestra's demographics have shifted with Asia's economic development. In the 1990s, it was dominated by Japanese players. But when Japan's economy faltered and China's grew, more Chinese members came on board. There is also an evolving contingent from Southeast Asia. In one telling example of the changing climate, Naoki Ota, a French horn player from Japan returned to his country in 2010 to deliver pizzas, but he later found work with the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, in China, because of his connection to the Asian Youth Orchestra .
The Asian group's age cap, at 27, is a bit higher than other youth orchestras to accommodate musicians from various backgrounds. Players can repeat the program as many times as they want so long as they pass auditions each time.
Kevin Julius Castelo, who is 23 and just graduated from the University of the Philippines as a percussion major, is on his fourth tour. He was a talented high school drummer who played in a rock band but had little exposure to classical music or instruments. “It's not like other countries, with better secondary school programs,” he said. “I didn't even know how to read notes.”
Back at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts last month, Mr. Lau, the general manager, continued to prepare the players for their first performance. He checked that their sheet music was ordered, their uniforms were ironed, and threatened to cover their legs in black stage tape if they forgot to wear socks.
To symbolize the full financial support that each of the orchestra's members receive for their participation and travel, Mr. Lau handed a certificate of donation to Hoang Ho Khanh Van, an 18-year-old violinist from Vietnam. “This is worth $12,500,” Mr. Lau said, positioning Ms. Hoang where she would face the VIPs in the front row. “So when your time comes, look at the audience and smile.”
用音樂架起亞洲的橋樑
音樂2015年8月11日
Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
亞洲青年交響樂團的103名樂手來自十幾個國家與地區。
香港——和許多為青年交響樂隊擔任指揮的優秀指揮家一樣，理查·龐信(Richard Pontzious)對樂手們並不總是和顏悅色。
25年前，龐信一手創立了這個樂團。上個月，樂團在準備香港演藝學院2015演出季的演出，第一次排練時，71歲的龐信指著第二小提琴手說道：“你不會數到五嗎？”此人過早進入了一個小節；之後龐信又把注意力轉向另一個拿錯了樂譜的銅管樂手。
他補了一句：“你要說，'對不起，龐信先生。'不，不是開玩笑。要是在專業的樂團裡，你會被開除的。”
之後，龐信在這個聚集了年輕樂手的屋子裡忙碌，接下來的兩個月裡，他們都將在一起合作。“在我的排練裡是不能蒙混過關的，”他說。
樂團的103名樂器演奏者是從800多名報名者中挑選出來的，來自全亞洲的十幾個國家與地區，年齡在17至27歲，這是他們第一次與樂團合演。他們只排練了幾個小時，就得在一個有贊助公司、政府官員和名流參加的慶典上演出埃爾加(Elgar)的《謎語變奏曲》(Enigma Variations)中的“Nimrod”樂章。
在接下來的三個星期裡，樂手們每天都要排練九個小時。這個星期六（8月8日——編者註），他們開始在中國大陸、台灣、香港和日本巡演，為總共兩萬名左右的觀眾演出。
在過去幾年裡，這支交響樂團曾在白宮、好萊塢露天劇場和紐約的艾弗里·菲舍大廳(Avery Fisher Hall)演出，但是到了第25個演出季，它卻停留在家鄉。8月16日，它將在香港體育館舉辦年度慶典，屆時將有600名音樂家參演，其中包括300名樂手（含往屆樂手）和300名歌手，帶來他們對貝多芬“第九交響曲”生機勃勃的演繹。
除了要掌握海頓、貝多芬、馬勒、施特勞斯和肖斯塔科維奇，青年交響樂團的成員們還得學著與來自各種不同背景的同伴們相處，並且為了完成巡演，還要在競爭關係錯綜複雜的亞洲各國（比如日本和中國）之間旅行。為了樂手們能夠順利進入某些特殊國家，樂團總經理劉國雄每一年都要處理各種簽證問題或取得特殊許可。
5月， 樂團成了第一支獲得日本日經亞洲獎(Nikkei Asia Prize)的交響樂團，原因是它將整個亞洲團結起來。
亞洲青年交響樂團於1900年由小提琴大師耶胡迪·梅紐因(Yehudi Menuhin)與龐信創辦，與歐盟青年交響樂團(European Union Youth Orchestra)頗為類似。不過，歐洲青年交響樂團是由一個泛國家政府機構組織，而亞洲青年交響樂團則是由私人創立，希望它的發展能在亞洲關係緊張的各國之上架起橋樑。龐信說，亞洲青年交響樂團的宗旨與東西方和平交響樂團(West-Eastern Divan Orchestra)最為貼近，這支西班牙塞維爾的樂團旨在讓中東地區因政治原因分隔開來的音樂家們歡聚一堂。
這些亞洲樂手們的教育不只在排練室裡完成。巡演期間，樂手們會住在讚助家庭裡，年輕的樂手們需要應付不同的文化和語言，他們一開始不一定喜歡這種體驗。
“對於某些樂團成員來說，這很痛苦。”龐信說。“有個中國樂手的祖父就是被日本兵殺死的。還有一個被安排住在日本家庭裡的中國女孩跑來對我說，'你覺得我會有什麼感受？'可是兩天后，她就把那家人的小嬰兒抱在自己懷裡了。這是非常普遍的反應。”
每場演出結束，介紹樂手時都會介紹他們的國家和地區，有時候非常令人緊張。2012年的巡演尤其動盪。樂團經過中國時，正值中國就領土爭議島嶼反日抗議的頂峰。在中國，“情緒一觸即發，任何與日本有關的人或事都會招來激烈的辱罵，”龐信當時為香港的英文媒體《南華早報》撰文寫道。日本樂手們都很擔心，但最後他們仍然贏得了中國觀眾的熱烈掌聲。
龐信來自舊金山，1967年搬到台灣，在亞洲目睹了許多起起伏伏。1983年，他被上海音樂學院聘請，成了“文化大革命”後第一批長期定居中國的外國人之一。“文革”從1966年延續到1976年，在那期間，“小資本主義”的西方樂器與樂曲都被公然銷毀。
“音樂學院在'文化大革命'期間受了很大損失，”他說。“當時那裡的樂器都很糟糕，孩子們都得拿橡皮筋綁住單簧管上的按鍵。”
但是今天的中國已經大不相同，如今，這裡矗立著嶄新的音樂廳，湧現出朗朗、李云迪和王健等著名獨奏音樂家。龐信認為古典音樂的未來在亞洲。“如果你觀察歐洲的觀眾，就會發現他們都上年紀了，”他說，“這裡卻正相反，人們都帶著小孩子來看音樂會。”
亞洲青年交響樂團的人口分佈隨著亞洲的經濟發展而變化。九十年代，樂團裡主要是日本樂手。但是隨著日本經濟衰退與中國的發展，愈來愈多的中國成員加入進來。東南亞的成員也在增加。一個有說服力的例子可以說明大環境的變化：2010年，日本圓號演奏者Naoki Ota回到日本後做起了外送披薩的工作，但後來憑著在亞洲青年交響樂團時結下的人脈，在中國的杭州交響樂團找到了職位。
加入亞洲青年交響樂團的最高年齡限制是27歲，比起其他接受不同文化背景的青年交響樂團要高一點。樂手可以重複參加這一活動，不限次數，只要通過試奏即可。
23歲的凱文·朱利烏斯·卡斯特羅(Kevin Julius Castelo)剛從菲律賓大學畢業，主修打擊樂器，這是他第四次參加巡演。上中學時，他就是一名天才鼓手，加入了一支搖滾樂隊，但幾乎沒怎麼聽過古典音樂或相關樂器。“我們這裡不像其他國家，有更好的中學課程，”他說。“我當時都不識譜。”
上個月香港演藝學院的演出之前，總經理劉國雄忙著幫樂手們準備他們的首場演出。他檢查他們的樂譜是不是放好了、制服有沒有熨過，威脅說如果他們忘了穿襪子，就用黑色膠帶把他們的腿粘起來。
每位成員參加樂團與旅行的全部費用都由經濟贊助支付，因此劉國雄安排了儀式，把捐贈證書交給18歲的越南小提琴手黃胡慶文（音譯）。“這個值12500美元，”劉國雄指點著她面向前排的特別貴賓席。“等輪到你的時候，別忘了看著觀眾微笑。”
沒有留言:
張貼留言