With the director of the Xing Hai Conservatory in Guangzhou

CiH Founder William Harvey returned to his home in Mexico City earlier this month after a successful collaboration between Cultures in Harmony and the Melody Culture Foundation, founded and directed by Chinese-American Tina Tian. The Melody Culture Foundation designed and implemented the project and covered the airfare, accommodation, and artist expenses; Cultures in Harmony only covered the visa expenses.

Coaching a string quartet at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music

From March 30 to April 5, 2018, William taught violin, viola, and composition master classes at Xing Hai Conservatory in Guangzhou, chamber music master classes at the Central Conservatory of Music (Middle School) in Beijing, and a workshop for the Sunshine Philharmonic, an amateur group. Major performances occurred in Beijing at the National Library Art Center and the Fengchao Theater. The former performance focused on Chinese music of various styles and memorably included a collaboration with performers of pipa, erhu, and dizi, while the second performance at Fengchao featured Mendelssohn’s D Minor Piano Trio as well as music for violin, cello, and piano from the three countries represented: for the home country of CiH and William, the USA, Augusta Read Thomas‘ “Silent Moon”; for Mexico, William’s country of residence, Gabriela Ortiz‘s “Trifolium”; for the host country of China, “Divergence” by Huang Ruo. The performance of “Silent Moon” (available in this video) was dedicated to the memory of Alan Durbecq, William’s colleague in Mexico’s National Symphony. Mr. Durbecq was an American cellist who spent nearly half a century in Mexican orchestras.

Performing Victoria Bond’s composition “Bridges,” which draws from Chinese and Western classical traditions

William is grateful to Tina Tian of the Melody Culture Foundation and to Liang Yan, a private violin teacher in Beijing, for coordinating the trip, as well as to the many outstanding musicians with whom he collaborated.

With young fans after the concert at Fengchao