Sampan sat down with the conductor of the Boston Festival Orchestra, Alyssa Wang. Wang discussed the orchestra’s upcoming program, “A Celebration of Chinese Arts and Culture,” as well as her thoughts on inclusion and engagement in music, and what it means to her to be leading the performance as a Chinese American. BFO’s “A Celebration of Chinese Arts and Culture” will be held on July 28, 3 p.m., at Jordan Hall in Boston.
Tickets can be purchased at: bforchestra.ticketleap.com/scheherazade/
Sampan: Will you tell us a bit about the Boston Festival Orchestra, your role with the group, and the upcoming program, a “Celebration of Chinese Arts and Culture”?
Alyssa Wang: I am the co-founder, artistic director, and conductor of the Boston Festival Orchestra, and this is a very near and dear project to my heart. We are relatively new. We founded right when the pandemic started, and our first season was delayed because of the pandemic, however, we were able to come back, and what we have now is a really interesting full year of programming that includes some chamber music, some opera, some educational programs. It all culminates in our Summer Stage Series, which is our season with a full orchestra–which I conduct. Part of our mission of the Boston Festival Orchestra is to really try and revolutionize what it means for music to be accessible to people, particularly classical music. We are always looking for ways to present this music in fresh and exciting and approachable ways. That means that many of our concerts include cultural elements, interdisciplinary elements, audience interactive elements, et cetera. Our concerts really don’t follow the standard or orchestra model. There’s lots of engagement on the stage, we do lots of demonstrations, and we really care about our audiences, that they have a personal experience with the music. We want to give them the context of the music and give them the tools that they need to really understand where this music is from. ‘Why does it matter today?’ And then we can find that music is the way that we can use our skills as artists to connect our community, have those authentic connections as a community.
My role as artistic director, I am the one that curates the programs, and I am very passionate about featuring the diversity that exists in the classical music world, and that often comes out in the form of composers, new and old. We program music that’s from all over the world and from all different time periods. That makes our concerts have a really exciting variety…. “A Celebration of Chinese Arts and Culture” … is a really rare combination of Chinese artistry sharing the stage. I will be conducting the program. Featured on this program is a very special piece for solo piano called Er Huang, it was written by the living Chinese composer Qigang Chen, and it will be performed by the Chinese virtuoso pianist Ruoting Li, who is BFO’s resident pianist.
We’re having the trifecta of a Chinese conductor, a Chinese composer, and a Chinese performer. I was really excited when I first found this piano concerto because it just does such a beautiful job of incorporating Chinese folk songs, very popular Chinese folk songs, into the tapestry of a classical orchestra. What you’ll hear is all of the typical orchestral instruments performing these beautifully orchestrated Chinese folk songs with the piano solo, kind of tying it all together. I really love the fact that I get to use this opportunity to introduce our broader audience to the beauty of Chinese music and that the representation that we have on stage for that concert is really important in all aspects. It’s really a privilege to be able to share that moment with everybody.
Sampan: You’ve touched on this a little bit, but how has your identity as a Chinese American impacted you as you approach this project?
Alyssa Wang: I think this is the first time that I have ever really made my identity as a Chinese American musician kind of at the forefront of the concert, and I’ve never really had many opportunities to play music that is about being Chinese or that was even, like, written by Chinese people. Anytime I get to use my artistic voice to highlight Chinese artistry, it’s always a rare and a precious opportunity. I’m really honored, honestly, just to be able to go on stage and let my identity kind of speak for itself and to feel pride about being Chinese American. So, yeah, it’s very special for me.
Sampan: Your website says you have a focus on audience inclusivity and engagement. How do you manage that?
Alyssa Wang: My approach to performance is to not assume that people in the audience are experts in the music that I’m playing, because they’re usually not. The average person who goes to a concert hall maybe is interested in classical music, maybe has heard of Beethoven or Mozart, but doesn’t really know any of the details of the music or any of the history. And they are just there because they want to listen to something beautiful and to think about art and music and to experience something profound.
I always try whenever I’m performing to give the audience the tools that they need to have that profound experience. And that could be as simple as just interfacing with the audience beyond the music that you play. I find that the model of going onto stage playing, everybody claps and then you leave is very impersonal and makes people who don’t know a lot about classical music, feel excluded from the process because they feel like if they didn’t enjoy that experience, that there’s something that they’re missing or that they’re not educated enough in the matter, or they’re not knowledgeable enough about this to appreciate it. That attitude, the takeaway that some audiences get of, “I’m not knowledgeable enough to appreciate this comes from a place of elitism in the classical music industry.” I think it’s really important not just for the survival of the industry, but for our communication with each other as a community, to actually be giving our audience as much interaction as possible. So that way they feel like they’re with you when you’re playing, and you feel like you’re taking them on a journey. You’ve got to give them the equipment to go on the journey. Otherwise, they just kind of get left in the dust.
For years, I’ve been speaking to my audiences, curating concerts very carefully. I curate concerts and give a great deal of thought to what is on the program and what I’m going to say about it and how it all ties together. That way it doesn’t feel so much like you’re in a museum looking at kind of, like, dead artifacts, but like, you’re experiencing something that’s living and breathing today that’s relevant to you. Even if it’s music that was written 300 years ago, I still try to make a pitch to the audience about why they should care, and there are many, many ways to do that. We want to include people in the process.
(Also) We are doing “pay what you can” (ticket model). If you go into the ticket website to get your tickets and you can, if you’re only comfortable purchasing a ticket for $5, you can do it. Or $0, you can do that as well. We sort of leave the ticket price in the ticket buyer’s hand, and that allows us to make this concert super accessible. Our hope is to really engage the Chinese community in the city and get everybody to come out and celebrate this culture that has had such an impact in Boston, particularly, obviously in Chinatown. It also is really special for me because I have a long family history in Boston and in Boston, Chinatown. This, in a way, feels like the first time I’ve ever been able to really stand up on a stage and say, look at all the ways that I am proud to be from this community and represent this community.
Sampan: What do you want to say to the potential audience members who want to attend the show?
Alyssa Wang: I guess I’ll say that this concert is for everybody, and you should come. Whether you are a classical music aficionado or just discovering classical music for the first time, we are welcoming everyone from all walks of life into this concert. We really want to share the beauty and majesty of Chinese arts and culture with people. I hope that people will be curious to hear this beautiful piece and learn something new about music and take advantage of the pay-what-you-can ticket model.
