In this programme
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As part of BBC Radio 3's Focus on China season, Petroc Trelawny spent the last week in Beijing to record a special edition of Music Matters looking at the current and future place of classical music in China.
With a vast population of over 15million, Beijing represents massive audience and market potential for the classical music industry. New concert halls and orchestras are springing up in city after city; hot stars like Lang Lang and Yundi Li are introducing Beethoven, Chopin and Bach to the masses.
Among European music promoters a gold rush mentality exists - China is a vast untapped market; the one place where the serious music industry is growing. But how correct is this perception? Petroc met up with artists, composers, academics and arts managers in an attempt to find out.
People talked openly - Zhu Yibing, a cello professor teaching at the Central Conservatory after two decades in exile in Europe; Rudolph Tang, the former editor of the Chinese edition of Gramophone Magazine; Qigang Chen, a composer who will conduct the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games this summer; and Nick Smith, the British conductor of Beijing's International Festival Chorus.
Petroc visits the enormous egg-shell like National Centre for the Performing Arts, a vast palace of culture on the edge of Tian'anmen Square - but at the moment more of a tourist attraction than a serious arts venue. Chen Zuo Huang, the Music Artistic Director there, explains why he believes the $400million it cost to build the Centre was money well spent in ensuring a future for the performing arts in China.
There's criticism of ticket-pricing for classical music, and of the difficulty in developing a sophisticated audience, not obsessed with taking pictures and sending text messages during concerts. But there are plenty of plus points as well. Audiences seem to be more adventurous - a lack of musical education to date means concert-goers attend performances with no preconceptions - Tchaikovsky's 5th is approached in the same way as a new work. And the growth in performance opportunities means China's best young musicians no longer all end up leaving for Europe and America.
What's going on in Beijing today is only the beginning of the story for classical music in China - so its future is uncertain, but the passion of those involved in shaping it will surely have interesting results.
You can see more images from the Music Matters Beijing visit in our special picture gallery.
