Like the primeval movements of blood cells in a dynamic body, there is a vigorous chaotic movement of pedestrian masses, bicycles, and countless motorized vehicles, often overloaded with products and produce. In a glossy, colored print, these scenes look exotic. Within a moving pointillist image on a TV monitor, they look exciting. But a visitor from the West—as an alien cell moving within this body called China—finds these scenes not only exotic but, at first, a bit alarming. We had arrived in China to perform and teach. We were also absorbing a truly different culture.

Victoria Mushkatkol, Claudia Schaer, and Andrew Thomas take their bows after a performance at the Guangxi Arts College in Nanning. (Photo by Howard Kessler)

Following the long, long flight from Kennedy to Tokyo to Hong Kong, on December 16, 2001, three performers from Juilliard—Andrew Thomas, Victoria (Vika) Mushkatkol, and Claudia Schaer—and two spouses, Andy’s Howard Kessler and Vika’s Bek Slobodan, took the bus into Guangzhou on the Chinese mainland and checked into a five-star hotel, the White Swan. Within minutes, we were off again to practice for the evening’s recital, which was being co-sponsored by six groups: the Sino-American Art Exchange Concert, the Guangzhou People’s Association for Friendship With Foreign Countries, the Guangzhou Children’s Palace, the No. 109 Middle School of Guangzhou, the Guangdong Overseas Chinese Middle School, and the Guangzhou Peilei Theater. The concert was preceded by an early dinner with the president of Guangzhou University and followed by another dinner with our hosts, the mayor, the director of relations with foreign countries, and numerous others. We were experiencing total immersion with the Chinese people just hours after arriving, still feeling a bit disoriented by the change in time zones, the pressure of a performance, and the extraordinary kindness of our hosts.

This was the second trip to Guangzhou for Andy and Howard, and many in Guangzhou were already established friends. The formal presentation of business cards was followed by warm hand-holding (rather than a handshake), while the interpreter translated for us, “It has been far too long.”

The following day we toured the Pearl River Piano Company (an amazing mass-producer of home pianos, with aspirations to produce world-class concert grands as well) and visited officials and friends at the Middle School 109 for Music, followed by lunch and rehearsals for the concert at the Palace of the Children (conducted by Andy with solos and duets by Vika and Claudia). The day ended—as they did at every event here—with non-stop autographing of programs and posing for snapshots.

Andrew Thomas conducts a New Year's Gala Concert at Guangxi Arts College in Nanning. (Photo by Howard Kessler)

The busy activity of our stay in Guangzhou was punctuated happily for Andy and Howard with a late-night visit from Juilliard graduate and friend, Anthony Gonzales (now principal percussionist with the Guangzhou Symphony). Then, a short sleep and a shorter flight to Nanning (in southwestern China, near the Vietnamese border) into the open arms and TV camera lenses of our close friend, Li Jiang, director of the Attached Middle School of the Guangxi Arts College. (We had first met Li Jiang at the Hong Kong 2000 Chinese Piano Works Competition.) The following 10 days were filled with orchestra rehearsals, master classes, recitals, touring in Nanning and an abundance of food. The graciousness of our hosts was boundless. There were no limits to their desire to please and to learn. The Guangxi Arts College, renowned in China for its dance training, is making a determined effort to make the music division one of the best in the country. They need instruments, and they need scores. Andy coached a Brahms trio, for which the pianist played from a published score but the violinist and cellist played from parts that they had hand-copied themselves! This touched us profoundly, demonstrating the lengths to which the students there will go to acquire music. (Before we left for China, President Polisi had suggested to us that we bring a gift of CD ROMs of music scores. We did, and that gift helped enormously to enlarge their library of essential Western music.) Andy will be donating scores from his library, and invites interested people to donate extra scores from their own collections. They will be used and greatly appreciated. We were all struck by the students’ abilities and their eagerness to learn. We really felt useful.

On Christmas day we drove through the countryside—past fields of bananas, pineapples, sugar cane, litchi, bamboo, and banyan trees—to the resort of Bei Hai on the South China Sea. The temperature was almost 70 degrees, and we watched swimmers, fishing trawlers, Chinese vacationers, and women divers, who, resting on the beach, passed the time knitting scarves, socks, and children’s sweaters.

Andrew Thomas and Anthony Gonzales in Guangzhou. (Photo by Howard Kessler)

For New Year’s, there were two gala orchestral concerts, which were the culmination of our stay (and the intensive rehearsals and orchestral training one of the principal reasons for our visit). Howard designed the concert programs in Mandarin and English, giving his own master classes in computer graphics to the art department faculty. Andy conducted the new orchestra of students and faculty. Vika performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor. Claudia performed Beethoven’s Romance in F major and selections from the Butterfly Lovers Concerto—a beloved work in China, based on traditional folksongs. Also on the program was Andy’s orchestral work, Four Scenes from the Summer Palace, and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, masterfully performed by Liu Xiaojing (who, astonishingly, played the virtuoso violin part on the Chinese violin, the erhu, with Andy accompanying on the piano). Juilliard graduate Douglas Humpherys made a guest appearance playing Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1. These concerts were followed by another recital in Guilin and a riverboat cruise through the mountains.

Next December, Andy will be the head judge for the Second Chinese Works Piano Competition (sponsored this time by the city of Guangzhou), for which Howard will create the graphics and electronic scoring. Howard and Andy are also in negotiations to create a ballet (with a scenario by Howard, and music by Andy) for traditional Chinese and Western dancers, and traditional Chinese instruments and Western orchestra. On this visit, Andy, Vika, and Claudia were made guest professors of the Guangxi Arts College, and Andy was also made a permanent advisor.

On this trip we all learned to appreciate the intensity of China—a great civilization, compared to which Western culture is a mere child! For us as performers, this intensity is most directly felt in Chinese traditional music, which has a thrilling expressivity and a subtlety of nuance that needs to be studied and mastered as we in the West study and master our classic composers. It is initially as strange to us as Western art must have seemed at first to the Chinese. We were touched over and over by the Chinese people—their friendliness, and their eagerness to talk with us. Often we heard people struggling in elementary textbook English to say, “You are the first English-speaking people I have ever talked to.” By the time of our next trip, we hope that our Mandarin will be one-tenth as good!

Howard Kessler is a graphic artist, freelance designer, database manager, and writer. Andrew Thomas is a composer and director of the Pre-College Division. Andy and Howard participated in a Civil Union Ceremony in Vermont last July.