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Globally, it’s rare for someone to start learning conducting at 14, and even rarer for a young person to win two international conducting awards by 21.

”Post-2000” Jin Yukuang not only consecutively won runner-up at the Khachaturian and Only Stage international conducting competitions, but also initiated the founding of a New Classical Chamber Orchestra composed entirely of ”post-2000” youth during the toughest pandemic last year.

From the Shanghai Summer Music Festival in July to the Beijing International Music Festival in October, this young New Classical Chamber Orchestra emerged as a bold ambition from the post-2000 generation through their choice of repertoire. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s death, they performed Stravinsky’s ”Four Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier” at the trendiest Sanlitun Red Hall, marking its first performance in China.

”This is Stravinsky’s last work in his later years, the last pencil he used in his life drew lines on this score,” Jin Yukuang proudly states. They are not a professional orchestra, yet they dare to debut this piece. In fact, since their inception, this young orchestra has been seeking and challenging the ”most difficult.” In their inaugural performance last January, they presented Stravinsky’s ”Dumbarton Oaks Concerto in E-flat Major” and Copland’s ”Appalachian Spring,” both acclaimed as ”litmus tests for large chamber ensembles.”

New Classical Chamber Orchestra performance scene/Beijing International Music Festival

Precisely because they chose two representative works from the new classical era, they straightforwardly named the orchestra ”New Classical.”

This ”new” includes not only research and exploration of new classical repertoire but also a new perspective of the younger generation towards classical music. Jin Yukuang says, ”New represents the current era; we play classical music, but classical music isn’t stuck and rigid; it’s always growing and innovating.”

This 1.88-meter-tall young man has a mature understanding of classical music that surpasses his age. He believes that compared to Mozart, Haydn was a figure from the classical era half a century earlier, thus Mozart represents innovation. Conductor Gergiev uses a toothpick to lead a hundred-member orchestra, Wang Yujia brings iPads to concert halls—these disruptive musical forms are all innovations. And what the New Classical Chamber Orchestra wants to initiate is a new era of experience that belongs to the post-2000 generation.

Studying classical music together, playing escape rooms together

”Explosive,” says Zou Shuang, Artistic Director of the Beijing International Music Festival, when talking about the New Classical Chamber Orchestra’s performance in Sanlitun. It was like a concert she’s been waiting for—young, full of tension, with an active atmosphere both on and off stage.

They truly ”play” classical music, and ”enjoying playing on stage” is the experience of every orchestra member.

”Our motivation for forming the orchestra is very pure—to play music with friends who grew up together.” Jin Yukuang says, the orchestra’s current 15 core members are all studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, many of whom have journeyed from the affiliated elementary school.

For this ”post-2000” generation, making music doesn’t involve much contemplation, burden, or limitation. Forming an orchestra for them is simply a group of like-minded friends coming together to discuss and interpret music. One of their goals is to excavate overlooked works that haven’t yet been performed in China. They derive more enjoyment from the process of playing and the pleasure of collectively researching challenging new pieces.

This year, ”post-2000” Jin Yukuang consecutively won runner-up at the Khachaturian and Only Stage international conducting competitions/photo swatch/Beijing International Music Festival

Zou Shuang once accidentally intruded on the New Classical Chamber Orchestra’s rehearsal site, ”like a teacher suddenly checking in.” In the hallway, she heard teasing laughter, but as she approached, it suddenly became quiet. Peeking through the door gap, it seemed as if nothing had happened, everyone was seriously rehearsing.

Within this young orchestra, there is no strict hierarchical distribution found in professional orchestras. The conductor and orchestra members are equals, with every individual’s ideas respected and realized. They can determine which pieces to perform from their own standpoints, engage in lively discussions over a detail during rehearsals, and search for various resources online to delve deeper into the music.

On stage, they are a rigorously styled classical chamber orchestra. Off stage, after leaving the rehearsal space, they will arrange to have late-night snacks together and play escape rooms.

Jin Yukuang recalls a foreign conductor once jesting that conducting a world-famous old symphony orchestra is like driving an old Lincoln car—turn the steering wheel twice, and the response is slow.

He compares the New Classical Chamber Orchestra to a small-sized Mazda MX sports car, ”We are more agile, can turn faster, but it also means we might veer off course more easily.” But whether veering off or crashing, he believes it’s a necessary path.

The youngest conductor

”I haven’t truly studied conducting abroad,” Jin Yukuang says. Winning the silver award at the Khachaturian International Conducting Competition, becoming the youngest winner in the event, felt like an accident to him.

Reflecting on the state before stepping onto the finals stage in June this year, he was completely devoid of nervousness, instead filled with confidence and enjoyment. Of course, he also remembers the nervousness of his first conductorial appearance at 16. When the Zurich Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra visited Shanghai, Jin Yukuang, then a high school sophomore student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Affiliated High School, was recommended by his teacher Zhao Xiaoou to take the stage, facing musicians much older than him, conducting the second movement of Beethoven’s ”Symphony No. 1,” ”My legs were trembling with nervousness.”