Hitting the right note at the Games

In his youth, Chen Qigang’s introduction to music came from playing the clarinet. Later, as a composition student in Beijing, then as an established composer in Paris, he could often be found at the piano. But for the last six months, Chen’s primary instrument has clearly become the telephone.

Since his appointment last June as music director for the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games, Chen’s life has taken a radical turn. He was in Paris in January for the world premiere of his “Enchantements oublies” at the Salle Pleyel with the Philharmonic of Radio France, but Chen had to return immediately to Beijing, bypassing any chance of hearing the Hong Kong Philharmonic perform his “Five Elements” the next day.

At this point, time is a luxury the composer can’t afford. Now managing a full production office, Chen has been thrust into a manic schedule of 18-hour workdays, his cellphone his primary connection to the outside world. “This job was not something I desired,” he recently admitted, naturally, by phone. “To be honest, the Olympics had never entered my mind until I got that first phone call.”

It was totally by chance, he says, that he happened to be in Beijing at precisely the time that director Zhang Yimou, Chen’s one-time collaborator for their “Raise the Red Lantern” ballet and now heading the Olympic ceremonies, was trying to find him. “By the time we finally met -- it was after 10 p.m. -- he started asking me vague questions. Did I have much free time in 2008? If there happened to be an assignment for the Olympics, would I be interested? Basically, he wouldn’t give me any real information, and I told him nothing. It was a total standoff for 30 minutes.”

Chen’s main concern, though, was Tan Dun, the Oscar-winning composer whose “First Emperor” -- directed by Zhang for the Metropolitan Opera last season -- was seen by many as a lobbying effort for the Olympic post. Chen says, with a touch of bemusement: “I asked, ‘Isn’t Tan Dun doing this?’ and Zhang only said, ‘I can’t give you an answer.’ Of course, he’d already given me his answer by asking me in the first place.”

Throughout the rest of their nonconversation, Chen deduced only that a falling-out had occurred. From there, Chen’s own chain of events became almost comically opaque. The next morning, a similarly indirect interview with Olympic officials focused not only on his compositions but also on his general working style. The officials then said they had to wait for higher approval and asked him to cancel all immediate plans.

“They didn’t exactly forbid me to return to Paris, but they made it clear that my leaving Beijing would not help the process.” Chen was confirmed within a week, but the life abroad he had cultivated for two decades would be put on hold.

Born in 1951, Chen was a member of the illustrious “class of 1978,” named for the first year that conservatories reopened in China after the Cultural Revolution. Even before his younger Central Conservatory classmates Tan Dun, Chen Yi and Zhou Long moved to America, Chen had become the first young Chinese composer to establish himself in France.

At first, he says, the allure was strictly musical. “The detail and nuance in French music was very similar to my own,” he says. “I had already discovered Debussy and Ravel, then I met Messiaen.”

In the same way that Tan Dun describes John Cage and that Bright Sheng reveres Leonard Bernstein, Chen discusses the influence of Olivier Messiaen, who became his teacher between 1984 and 1988. “Messiaen was the first person to tell me that you have to be true to yourself,” he recalls. “This is fundamental for an artist, but few of us are brave enough to face the truth. It took me many years to discover who I really am.”

That sense of identity is now being sorely tested as Chen puts aside his creative life for the administrative responsibilities of a music director. “At first, being a composer, I thought they were asking me to compose the music,” he says. Once he saw the dimensions of the opening ceremony, which requires nearly four hours of continuous music in a broad range of styles, he quickly set up his own production office.

Now entrenched in Beijing Olympic opacity, Chen refuses to divulge the location of his office or how many people he employs.

He does say that the bulk of his own work has been identifying and hiring composers, singers and instrumentalists who match the range of requirements but could join together in a coherent program. Chen himself is part of the team of composers writing music for the ceremonies, each of whom he coordinates through individual phone calls every week.

His typical workday begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 a.m. “I’ve never worked like this before,” he says. “I’ll be shaping a particular scene with pop music, then flip around and start planning something for an orchestra of Chinese instruments. Every 20 or 30 minutes, I’m in a different musical sphere.”

A new experience

At every turn, he adds, is a reminder that no one in China has ever done this before. “It’s difficult when nobody has any experience,” he says, “but it also makes it easier to create something original.” Not only is this everybody’s first time, he says, it’s also everybody’s last time, which only increases the pressure to create a palpably Chinese production.

“This requires a certain kind of balance,” he says. “Many of the featured cultural performances will be truly Chinese, but the larger framework of the Olympics is global and international. An Olympic theme song taken straight from Peking Opera would hardly reflect the spirit of the Games.

“Basically we have one principle: not to use money as our primary motive,” he continues, adding that he receives no salary as music director. “Sydney [Australia], for example, had a large budget and spent it all. Everybody knows that China can create a world-class show simply by throwing around our recent abundance of money.

“But our goal is actually to be quite restrained. When they asked me what conditions I have for the job, I said I wanted only the opportunity to radiate Chinese traditions and musical culture.”

Not far from his mind, though, is how the position -- for which he turned down opera and symphonic commissions -- will affect him later as a composer. “This is a rare opportunity for anyone, but particularly for composers of art music,” he says.

“As students, we used to look down on pop music, but now I realize that writing ‘simple’ music is actually quite difficult. I look around the West and see that most serious composers have simply nothing to do with the rest of their culture.

“Steve Reich, for example, would never be offered this opportunity in the West because there would be plenty of pop composers in line for the job.

“Here, the boundaries are more porous. We can interact with many artists of different viewpoints who’ve grasped their own essential truths the same way we composers have grasped ours. This is obviously going to change the music I write in the future.”

--

This article is published by special arrangement with the Financial Times.