Students and staff listen to Andrew Field's take on the musical history of the city.
Last night students and staff were treated to a music tour of Shanghai, conducted by the director of the B.U. Shanghai Program, Dr. Andrew Field. Our first stop was the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where we learned a wide range of interesting facts about the development of western music in the first half of the twentieth century in Shanghai.
The house band lays down the funk at Shanghai's Cotton Club
One of the more interesting elements of the talk involved the role played by Shanghai’s Russian community in bringing western music to China. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, many conductors, composers, and professors of music fled Russia, and some of them ended up in Shanghai. They became some of the most important early professors at the Conservatory, and helped bring the musical traditions of Europe to China.
Later in the evening, we were treated to live music performances at two of the top clubs in Shanghai. At the Cotton Club, we saw a funk/pop performance, featuring an outstanding local trumpet player who goes by the name “Dr. Hu.” And at our last stop, we enjoyed 30s and 40s-style Shanghai jazz at the JZ Club.
