Exchanges with the Netherlands

Based in Utrecht (NL), The Franz Liszt International Piano Competition has held many successful piano master classes from music conservatories in China with several Chinese pianists becoming prize winners (Li Yundi, Third Prize, 1999), and Yindi Sun (First Prize 2005).

The Nieuw Ensemble, one of Europe’s top ensembles for new music is renowned for its fruitful collaboration with Chinese composers such as Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong, Jia Daqun, Xu Shuya, Chen Qigang and Guo Wenjing. The Chinese repertoire of the Nieuw Ensemble consists of more than seventy works especially written for the group. In 1997, the ensemble toured China with concerts in Shanghai and Beijing. In 2008, the Nieuw Ensemble performed two concerts in the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing.

Several regional orchestras from the Netherlands have performed in China, mainly in Shanghai and Jiangsu province. Individual Dutch musicians and small-scale and chamber music ensembles have also toured China such as pianist Wibi Soerjadi and the piano duo Leo van Doeselaar and his wife Wyneke Jordans. Doeselaar and Jordans performed in Shanghai in 2005 and returned to Shanghai in October 2006 performing works by Mozart.In late 2008, the Netherlands Music Festival was held at the National Center for Performing Arts and included performances by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (back in China for the first time since 1996), the Nieuw Ensemble and the Ensemble of the 18th century.