Martin Engstroem continues his music collaboration with China on his latest tour with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. Provided to China Daily

Martin Engstroem first visited China in 1997 as part of the production team for the opera Turandot at the Forbidden City.

During the three weeks in Beijing, he says he encountered "a lot of difficulties cultural differences, language problems and we did not really trust each other", he says of the relations between his team and locals.

"But, of course, it turned out to be a big success, with Zubin Mehta conducting an international cast and orchestra, and directed by one of Chinese most celebrated directors, Zhang Yimou, making the story of the return to the royal palace that Puccini imagined, happen."

Some 16 years have passed, and Engstroem says in Beijing on Tuesday that there have been dramatic changes. "There are less bicycles and more cars anything is possible" here.

"Turandot was probably the first major collaboration between China and the Western world. But now cultural communications happen every day," says the founder, artistic and executive director of the Verbier Festival.

"We are jealous that you have so many new concert halls, even in the second- and third-tier cities. You have so many young kids learning classical music and you have many great young musicians.

"But what you are lacking is the software, the long-term planning of developing young talents or managing those concert halls."

Engstroem says he is always looking for new, young talent. It was this passion that inspired him to found the Verbier Festival in 1994, which includes an academy, an orchestra and a chamber orchestra.

Born in Stockholm, in 1953, Engstroem learned music history at university and began his career by organizing Sunday afternoon concerts for young musicians as a teenager.

Before founding Verbier Festival, he worked at artist management companies in London and Paris.

The first time he set foot in Verbier, a ski resort in Switzerland, he knew it was the right place to base a festival.

"There is only one road leading up to the village on top of the 1,500 meters high mountain and the same road down. It's not a passage. It's an island that I think is best for young talents to get together and focus on music."

The first Verbier Festival kicked off with Zubin Mehta conducting the Young Israel Philharmonic in July 1994. The Verbier Festival Academy was founded the same year.

In 2000, an orchestra of 120 young musicians from 18 to 29 years old was formed as the festival's orchestra in residence. In 2005, the Chamber Orchestra was founded.

Every year, Engstroem and his faculty travel to eight cities to audition 1,200 to 1,500 young musicians.

The 28-year-old Chinese cellist Zhou Mi passed the audition in Basel in 2010.

"I was an obedient student when I learned cello at Wuhan Conservatory, always doing what the teachers asked to do," Zhou comments. "But at Verbier, we peers shared our own understanding of music and the faculty members are more inspiring."

Meanwhile Engstroem worked at Deutsche Grammophon between 1999 and 2005, during which time he signed Chinese pianists Lang Lang, Li Yundi and Yuja Wang.

Engstroem says that, compared with the past, artists have to be more commercial, and it can be tricky drawing a line between being a classical musician and a pop star. He believes Lang Lang is a good example of this.

"Basically he is a classical pianist, but he has achieved so much popularity, a pop star status. He is a role model for young people - not only young musicians but normal young people," he says.

"Classical music is dying out, but luckily we have these young talents. All the artists and managers should work together to develop new audiences and to change the old fashion and stereotype of classical music.

"We can have concerts in the morning and afternoon, not only the evening. It's not necessary to wear black and white tuxedos to concerts, and we can have a musician who is like a rock star."

The Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra is touring China. Thursday's concert at the National Center for the Performing Arts featured Russian violinist Kirill Troussov and Chinese violinist Gao Can and cellist Zhou Mi.

The orchestra will continue to perform in Shanghai (March 1), Guangzhou (March 2), Shenzhen (March 3) and Hong Kong (March 4).

The musicians will give master classes to students at the Central Conservatory of Music and Shanghai Conservatory.

chenjie@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/01/2013 page18)