Yu Chuan: Bridging Strings – Chamber Music without Boundaries

The course is aimed at string and wind instruments, as well as percussion, who play together in an ensemble formed by the course leader and participants in various configurations to work on and perform works, including folk music. The course leader Yu Chuan is a master of the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-stringed string instrument that is not only used to perform traditional Chinese music, but is now also used to play transcriptions of works by Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, and other composers. His compositions and transcriptions of well-known works in various configurations, which are now part of the standard repertoire in Asian concert halls, attract particular attention. In addition to his concert appearances as a soloist and chamber musician in Asia and the West, Yu Chuan teaches erhu, conducting, and composition at the University of Beijing and is the musical director of the Beijing Wujie Chamber Orchestra. The premiere of his children's musical “If instruments could speak” took place in 2023.