MVO FOREGROUND COMPOSER 2024-2025: BAO YUANKAI

Planned in 2019 but delayed by the pandemic, the MVO Foreground Composer Series was launched in 2021. In 2018, when the MVO board developed a set of artistic commitments, Artistic Director Ho-Yin Kwok had already programmed George Walker’s Lyric for Strings and two dances from Elizabeth Maconchy’s Puck Fair for the following season. In the following season MVO performed works by Germaine Tailleferre and Ethel Smyth. The board wanted to do more and began discussing ways to pursue the most significant of the artistic commitments: “representation of diverse aspects of the human experience, such as culture, era, gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and religion.” Kwok proposed focusing on one underrepresented composer each season, playing their work throughout, pointing out that Beethoven’s work is beloved not only because it’s good but also because audiences have heard more of his work than one of his pieces played only once. The board couldn’t have been more enthusiastic, and the Foreground Composer Series was born. When it finally arrived, the inaugural season featured the work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and the next featured Ruth Gipps. MVO musicians and audiences alike get the irreplacable experience of becoming familiar with the composer’s sound over the course of the season. It is no small effort to carry out this commitment. Music scores and parts aren’t as accessible, for example. But there’s no question that it’s worth it. It is a privilege to be part of U.S. and regional premieres, and musicians have reported that they have recognized even pieces MVO didn’t perform as being by a Foreground Composer whose work they had never known before their inclusion in the series. Representation is what makes recognition possible.
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MVO Foreground Composer 2024-2025: Bao Yuankai
Professor Bao Yuankai (b. 1944) is a Chinese composer. He studied the flute and composition in the affiliated Middle School of Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music from 1957 to 1962 and later graduated from the Conservatory in 1967, majoring in composition and composition theory under the tutorage of Professors Su Xia, Jiang Dingxian, Chen Peixun, Yang Ruhuai and Duan Pingtai. He took up his first teaching job at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music in 1973, and has been a part-time professor in Nankai University, Tianjin Normal University and Nanhua University, Taiwan. He was also appointed as the Guest Academic Professor of Xiamen University. Notable awards received by Professor Bao include the “Golden Bell” award for composition, “Outstanding Music Educator” awarded by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and being the first batch of specialists to receive special funding from the Chinese State Council in recognition of his dedication towards music education and composition.
Bao’s compositions include Symphonies, Chamber music, Cantatas, Musicals, Movie and Television sound tracks, as well as children’s music. Between 1991 and 2001, Rhapsody of China — his magnum opus which included seven chapters of Symphonic music based on Chinese traditional themes and motifs — had been performed in 40 countries, across almost all continents. They had also been released by record companies such as Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and Hugo Records. These works have enjoyed high appreciation from audiences and became the most popular pieces of the Annual New Years Concerts at the Great Hall of People, and the Wiener Musikverein concert hall.

Since 2001, Bao’s larger works including the Cantata Story of a Heroine, Symphony No. 1 and the Symphonic Suite Sketchs of War have been well received by the audience and widely acclaimed by the media for the artistic excellence. His achievements has also been widely reported by the media, including the broadcast media such as CCTV, NPR (USA), print media such as People’s Daily, China Times (Taiwan), Helsinki Daily etc. He had also been featured in the cover stories of various magazines, including the American journal Music in China, Taiwan Symphony Orchestra’s Monthly magazine of Music and Hong Kong’s Today’s Chinese.

Professor Bao had devoted 30 years in the the education of music, nurturing hundreds of students from both sides of the Straits. Some of his students, for example Wu Jiaji, Liu Tong, Wang Xian and Liu Changyuan, have already established their reputations in the field of composition. In recent years, he is devoted in the establishment of an integrated interdisciplinary school of music through the study of both Western and Eastern music and the full development of the student’s potential. He had been giving lectures in various universities and actively promoting music.

At the invitation of the United States Information Agency (USIA), Professor Bao made an official visit to the States in 1993. He hads traveled widely since then, embarking on academic trips to Europe in 2001 and making 9 trips to Taiwan between 1994 and 2005 as a guest professor.
Professor Bao had been appointed as an Editorial member of the National Academic Journal “Music Research” as well as to the panel of judges in the “International Competition for Chinese Composers” held in Taiwan. He is currently the deputy head of the composition committee of the Chinese Musician’s Association and a member of the appraisal board of the “Golden Bell Awards”.

This season, Mississippi Valley Orchestra will present multiple US premieres of orchestral music by Bao Yuankai.