The China Now Music Festival is dedicated to promoting an understanding and appreciation of classical music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and lectures. Each year’s festival explores a singular theme.

"Politics often divides people, but in art and music, you always find connections. With the China Now Music Festival as our looking glass, we hope to continue bringing people and traditions together through music.”

–Jindong Cai

China Now Music Festival
Season Seven

October 12–19, 2024

CARNEGIE HALL
BARD COLLEGE

China Now Music Festival
Season Six

October 2–8, 2023

Bard College
Asia Society
Jazz at Lincoln Center

the fifth annual
China Now Music Festival
October 7—22, 2022

EAST OF WEST

Bard College, Hudson Opera House, Lincoln Center

Look Back: China Now 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018

the fourth annual china now music festival
October 12-17, 2021

Jindong Cai conducts The Orchestra Now. Photo Chris Lee

Jindong Cai conducts The Orchestra Now. Photo Chris Lee

ASIAN AMERICAN VOICES

Bard College • Online Worldwide

The 2021 China Now Music Festival connects culture, history, and the arts through a vibrant series of musical programs and discussion. This year we celebrate the voices of contemporary Asian American composers and musicians who are engaged in advocacy, reflection, and story telling around the experience of people of Asian descent within American society.

The THird annual CHINA NOW MUSIC FESTIVAL, December 11-18, 2020

China and Beethoven

Live | Online | Worldwide

The year 2020 marked the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Celebratory events were planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where classical music enjoys a huge following among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or re-imagined. As China began to reopen, Beethoven once again took center stage. 

The third annual China Now Music Festival provided a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s enduring legacy during the changing politics of the 20th century and China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

Enter the Festival site below for more information and to view event videos.

 

the second annual China Now Music Festival, sept-oct 2019

China and America — Unity in Music

Bard College | Carnegie Hall | Stanford University

Jindong Cai. Zhou Long, and Su Wei with The Orchestra Now, soloists, and the China Now Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall on October 1. Photo by Fadi Kheir

The 2nd annual China Now Music Festival celebrated milestones in the history of U.S.-China relations through music. Highlights included the world premiere of a symphonic oratorio by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long honoring Chinese workers on the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, plus a musical portrait of renowned diplomat Wellington Koo, and the China Now Music Festival Gala at Carnegie Hall.

Watch the two main events below. Pictures can be viewed on our Photos page.

Wellington Koo the Diplomat — A Life in Song performed live at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, NYC, September 30, 2019

Zhou Long’s Men of Iron and the Golden Spike symphonic oratorio, live at Stanford University, Bing Concert Hall, October 6, 2019

 

the inaugural China Now Music Festival, october 2018

Facing the Past, Looking to the Future:
Chinese Composers in the 21st Century

Bard College | Lincoln Center | Carnegie Hall

The Orchestra Now with the China Now Music Festival Chorus and conductor Jindong Cai at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center. Photo by Joe Zhou.

The inaugural season of the China Now Music Festival in 2018 featured U.S. and world-premiere works by some of the most important Chinese composers of our time, performed by Bard College's The Orchestra Now and conducted by Jindong Cai. 

Performances included Tony Fok’s moving oratorio ‘Ask the Sky and the Earth’ about China’s ‘sent down youth’ during the Cultural Revolution, as well as symphonic works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long, Ye Xiaogang, Guo Wenjing, and more.

Co-presented by the Central Conservatory of Music, China.

 
“The performance won thunderous applause. “The music is beautiful and the percussion is impressive,” Suzanne Mark, a New York resident told Xinhua, adding that this kind of Chinese history-themed melody helped her understand more about Chinese culture. - Xinhua News”