Signing Ceremony on March 21, 2023 in Beijing, China
Jindong Cai with Central Conservatory of Music President Yu Fang and other members of the CCOM faculty and administration at the March 21 signing ceremony.
On March 21, 2023, the Central Conservatory of Music of China and Bard College signed a new 5-year agreement to extend the "Chinese Music Development Initiative" previously established between the two schools in 2017. The signing ceremony for the second stage of the initiative was held in the Opera Hall of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In attendance representing Bard College were Malia Du Mont, Vice President for Strategy and Policy (via remote link), Professor Jindong Cai, Director of the US-China Music Institute, and Bard College Asia representative Shawn Moore. President Yu Feng of the Central Conservatory of Music also attended, as well as Vice President and Professor Yu Hongmei, Professor An Ping, Head of the Department of Music, and Professor Jia Guoping, Director of the Institute of Music. The ceremony was presided over by Professor Zhang Hongyan, Director of the Traditional Instruments Department of the Central Conservatory.
Malia DuMont of Bard College on the screen at the signing ceremony.
In a speech offered during the ceremony, Malia DuMont expressed her appreciation for the pioneering partnership established between the two schools in the past five years. On behalf of president of Bard College Leon Botstein, she thanked the Central Conservatory of Music for its work with Bard’s US-China Music Institute. Said DuMont, "We are very proud to see that there are more than 20 students currently enrolled in the US-China Music Institute, and we look forward to more students of Chinese instruments coming to Bard in the future. We are still the only conservatory in the West to award degrees in Chinese traditional instruments. As the two schools further deepen their cooperation, we hope that we can spread Chinese music even further on a journey of music and culture.”
President Yu Feng pointed out in his speech that with the strong support of the Central Conservatory of Music, the US-China Music Institute at Bard is becoming a significant cultivator of students proficient in Chinese music while, at the same time, also serving as a bridge connecting the Chinese and American music scenes. He praised the joint efforts of the two schools over the past five years for the establishment of Bard’s undergraduate double-degree program in Chinese instruments and liberal arts, the annual China Now Music Festival, and other Chinese music collaborations such as annual academic conferences and Chinese New Year concerts in New York City.
Education to Cultivate Chinese music and culture — messengers for the world
December 2017 signing ceremony at CCOM for the first 5-years of the Chinese Music Development Initiative.
Professor Jindong Cai, Director of the US-China Music Institute, and Professor Yu Hongmei, Vice President of the Central Conservatory of Music, looked back fondly at the first five-year plan creating the Chinese Music Development Initiative. Back in December 2017, CCOM president Yu Feng and Robert Martin, then director of the Bard Conservatory of Music, plus professors Yu Hongmei and Jindong Cai, met in Beijing and jointly signed the new initiative establishing the most innovative system for Chinese music education and development in the West.
With the joint efforts of Chinese and American colleagues over the past five years, Bard’s US-China Music Institute has grown into an influential center for Chinese music studies and cultural exchange outside of China. After starting in 2018 with just four students, the five-year undergraduate double-degree in Chinese instruments and liberal arts at Bard now has nearly 20 undergraduates enrolled, with the first class of students set to graduate this May.
First year Bard pipa student Kendall Griffith spoke and performed on screen during the ceremony.
Kendall Griffith, a first-year American student from Boston majoring in pipa at the US-China Music Institute, gave an online presentation during the March 21 signing ceremony to share her experiences as a student at Bard. Speaking in both Chinese and English, she expressed her excitement at the opportunity to study in person at the Central Conservatory of Music through an exchange program proposed in the new 5-year plan.
Director Jindong Cai said, “The more than 20 students of Chinese instruments at Bard represent not only their presence on campus, but also the presence of Chinese music in the West with Bard as a base. Bard College has a 163-year history and a comprehensive and diversified educational approach that fosters this kind of innovative development.” Cai further shared that the US-China Music Institute began offering a Master of Arts in Chinese Music and Culture at Bard College in 2022, with the goal of fostering Chinese music talent at the graduate level with a strong academic foundation in Chinese culture.
The New 5-Year Chinese Music Development Initiative Plan
Jindong Cai and President Yu Fang display the signed Chinese Music Development Initiative documents.
Rooted in the historic model of the first Chinese Music Development Initiative plan, the second five-year plan will be dedicated to entering a new era in the dissemination and development of Chinese music in the West. In addition to continuing to improve and strengthen teaching cooperation and existing learning exchange programs, it will be expanded to include joint training, new student exchange programs, exchange of visits between professors and experts, publication of English-language textbooks and academic journals, music creation, and further cooperation in various fields such as music theory.
Chinese music has a profound heritage and vast inclusiveness. Professor Cai compared the "Chinese Music Development Initiative" to sowing seeds, and hoped that the seeds of Chinese music under this kind of cultivation will be enough to spread and advance access to universities and cultural institutions around the world.