The God of Conducting Starting from Absolute Pitch

Chapter 407 History and Reality

Ji Zhe had a smile on his face and he smiled at everyone.

When he saw Chen Qiu, he couldn't help but look him up and down.

Ji Zhe is not a native of Haicheng.

He is a special reporter and special guest of Musician Magazine in China.

Basically, he interviews all the cover characters of the Chinese musician magazine China Monthly.

At the same time, the manuscripts he wrote were scattered in local magazines. Although they were not published every week, there were at least two articles every month.

This means that as long as this person comes to interview you, you have basically been entered into the selection for the magazine cover in advance.

Then you only have two outcomes.

Or you go straight to the cover of the musicians magazine Huaguo Monthly.

Or, you get on the cover of a local weekly and your music reviews get picked up for inclusion in a monthly magazine.

It can basically be said that Ji Zhe controls the discourse power of the entire Musician Magazine's Chinese branch, and can be regarded as the most important music critic.

However, this is only his influence in the music critic circle, he also has the same influence among the audience in the music industry.

That being said, many people in the Chinese music industry know Ji Zhe, and there is even a special group of people who track Ji Zhe's movements and see where he goes.

Wherever Ji Zhe goes, there will be some people following suit, and the tickets for that orchestra will become much easier to sell.

Ji Zhe even had the experience of supporting an entire symphony orchestra on his own.

It is said that when the Guicheng Symphony Orchestra was not yet popular, Ji Zhe was attracted to listen to it, and then wrote a report about the Guicheng Symphony Orchestra and put it on the front page, and then the Guicheng Symphony Orchestra became popular all of a sudden.

It has become China's top symphony orchestra.

Even stronger than Haicheng Symphony.

of course!

The rise of the Guicheng Symphony Orchestra certainly has little to do with Ji Zhe. The main reason for their rise is that the orchestra is willing to pay money, invest, and spend a lot of money to build an international-level symphony orchestra.

However, it is not clear whether Ji Zhe had any role in their rise.

All in all, for people in the classical music world, being interviewed by Ji Zhe must be a great thing.

I was so happy that I wouldn't refuse.

Therefore, when Ji Zhe looked at Chen Qiu, there was a confident smile on his face.

He believed that Chen Qiu would definitely not refuse his interview invitation.

All he was thinking about now was how much space he should give to Chen Qiu in this interview.

After all, the sudden emergence of such a group of rookies in the lifeless music circle can make everyone move more, and it is good to have a sense of crisis.

Maybe the music industry will come alive in the future?

So he smiled and spoke.

"Commander Chen Qiu, I have heard of your great name for a long time. I can always hear many people discussing you wherever I go. By the way, this should be our first meeting, right?"

"Of course!"

Chen Qiu nodded slightly and said with a very polite smile.

"Teacher Ji Zhe is very famous in China. To be interviewed by Teacher Ji Zhe, I am really excited. I never thought that you would come all the way here just for me. Thank you so much."

Of course, what Chen Qiu said were empty words, lies and clichés.

To be honest, Chen Qiu didn’t even know Ji Zhe existed before he came.

The most Chen Qiu knew was that there was such a thing as Musicians Magazine, but he had no idea about the rules and music critics within Musicians Magazine.

He just knew that someone gave him a score, that's all.

Chen Qiu thought that Ji Zhe, who came to him to make an appointment for an interview, was just trying to get some attention.

After all, Musician Magazine, currently the most popular magazine in the music industry, is also the rating standard for all bands.

Although this magazine never takes the initiative to ask a band to do anything, the relationship between them is relatively distant. You give your scores and I perform mine.

But if you want to interview someone and ask them to give you a little face, there is no problem with that.

Chen Qiu agreed to the interview with Musician Magazine, and then Ji Zhe came.

He said to Ji Zhe cheerfully.

"So, Mr. Jizhe, where do you want to start? I have rehearsals this afternoon, and the orchestra will practice later. Time is tight, so it would be better to finish early."

"Oh, that's how it is……"

Ji Zhe glanced at Chen Qiu and didn't say much.

Compared to people like Chen Qiu who only work in the orchestra, he has met many more people than Chen Qiu.

Few people could pretend under his nose.

In the past, he used this skill to see which people were pretending to be calm but were actually extremely excited.

After all, his reputation is here, and when everyone sees him, the excitement in their hearts is really hard to hide.

But he couldn't see that at all from Chen Qiu.

Chen Qiu looked very excited on the surface, but actually his body was extremely calm.

Even feeling a little anxious.

It feels like I could deal with him sooner and be done with it sooner.

Is this guy really unaware of his reputation, or is he just pretending better?

Ji Zhe looked into Chen Qiu's eyes and couldn't help but think.

Looking at Chen Qiu's increasingly puzzled eyes, he was probably sure of one thing.

That is……

Regardless of whether he knew him or not, his reputation really meant nothing to Chen Qiu.

Chen Qiu really doesn't care about himself that much.

Thinking of this, Ji Zhe felt relieved.

In this case, he doesn't need to pretend.

He smiled and nodded at Chen Qiu.

"It's all right. I can do it. How about we go directly to the place where Chen Qiu is used to conducting? In the concert hall? It happens that after our interview is over, you can just go directly to rehearsal."

"That's it..."

Chen Qiu took out his cell phone from his pocket, took a look at it, roughly estimated the time of the band members, and then nodded.

"Okay, then let's go directly to the concert hall."

After saying that, Chen Qiu nodded to Qin Xian beside him.

"Qin Xian, let's go to the concert hall first. You go to the music library and get the music we're going to use later. Mark the bowing techniques for the other musicians, and then do an analysis. Just follow the ideas I gave you before, okay?"

"it is good."

Qin Xian nodded, turned around without any hesitation, and walked towards the music library.

Ji Zhe looked at Qin Xian's back, nodded thoughtfully, and said to Chen Qiu.

"Your chief...seems to have a very good relationship with you?"

"Of course, she is my concertmaster after all. If the relationship between us is strained, then our orchestra would have no chance to reach this point, right?"

Chen Qiu led Ji Zhe the way and then smiled at him.

"If we couldn't get to this point, you wouldn't have come to me to prepare for the interview, right?"

"Yeah, that's true."

Ji Zhe nodded thoughtfully.

But he didn't say it.

He felt that the relationship between Chen Qiu and Qin Xian, that is, the conductor and the principal of their orchestra, was better than he had imagined.

Compared with other orchestras, the relationship between the conductor and the principal of other orchestras is more like that of colleagues, or simply a command-and-subordinate relationship.

But in the communication between Chen Qiu and the chief just now, he felt that the two of them were like brothers and friends.

Is this a young band?
There is not much hierarchy among everyone. Everyone is the same and is working hard to contribute to the development of the orchestra.

This feeling is quite interesting.

Ji Zhe silently took note of this in his heart, followed Chen Qiu with a smile, and listened to him talk about the history of the orchestra.

As Chen Qiu continued to talk, he gradually remembered why he felt a little bit familiar with this band.

Haicheng Harmony Symphony Orchestra.

He had heard the name of this symphony orchestra a long time ago.

Of course, at that time he was still a young reporter and didn't have much fame.

The conductor of the orchestra was not Chen Qiu, but Chen Yuan.

That is Chen Qiu's father.

At that time, he interviewed Chen Yuan and talked a lot with him. Unfortunately, because he was not famous enough, his news was not published in the newspaper.

However, most of the music reviews and interviews he wrote were not published in newspapers, so he didn't care much about it.

It was only later when he heard that the Harmony Symphony Orchestra had encountered major changes, Chen Yuan had passed away, and the orchestra had fallen from seventh to fifteenth that he suddenly remembered this incident.

He interviewed Chen Yuan.

At that time, he wrote an obituary to Chen Yuan and sent it to the Harmony Symphony Orchestra, but unfortunately he did not receive a reply.

He originally thought that he might have nothing to do with the Haicheng Harmony Symphony Orchestra in this life.

But I didn't expect it to happen a few years later.

He actually came here again.

He actually interviewed Chen Yuan's son, Chen Qiu.

And Chen Qiu is obviously much stronger than Chen Yuan.

Not only did he reach the third place in Haicheng in just a few years, which was also Chen Yuan's best result before.

He is still moving forward.

The current provisional score has already ranked second in Haicheng.

There is even a chance to become number one in Haicheng.

Not only that, they also obtained the qualification to perform in the main part of the Salzburg Music Festival.

They can talk directly to the Salzburg Festival and find a suitable time to perform.

This is really awesome.

You should know that there are only a few musicians and music groups in China who can perform at the Salzburg Music Festival.

Chen Qiu and his Harmony Symphony Orchestra can occupy such a good ecological niche, so one can imagine their strength.

Therefore, when Chen Qiu introduced the orchestra to Ji Zhe, Ji Zhe couldn't help but sigh.

"Speaking of Chen Qiu conducting, it feels like such a long time has passed, but the orchestra still has such a strong flavor of the past. It really makes me feel nostalgic."

Chen Qiu smiled and said, "The feeling of the past? Teacher Ji Zhe, have you been to our place before?"

Ji Zhe nodded: "I came here once before when your father became one of the top three in Haicheng."

"I see. Our band does keep the old feeling, but some small details have been updated, so it feels very similar to the past..."

Chen Qiu paused as he spoke and couldn't help scratching his head.

"But according to my band members, they feel that the band has actually changed a lot. Since the band has been slightly renovated, my band manager couldn't even find the entrance."

"Oh? Then maybe I have embellished the Harmony Symphony Orchestra in my memory. After all, some of the ones I am familiar with are still there. When people reach my age, they basically rely on the most beautiful details in their memories to recall."

Ji Zhe spoke with a little emotion.

As they were talking, they arrived at the door of the concert hall.

Because the orchestra is going to rehearse this afternoon.

To prevent uninformed passers-by from coming in.

Therefore, all the doors of the concert hall were locked, and Chen Qiu only left a small door for the band members to go out to get takeout or something.

Chen Qiu took Ji Zhe and entered through the small door.

At this moment, the lights in the concert hall have not been fully turned on. In the absence of any natural light, the concert hall appears pitch dark.

Only some lights along the aisle were still on.

After Chen Qiu asked Ji Zhe to find a place to sit on his own, he went backstage according to his memory and turned on the lights.

Click.

The auditorium in the concert hall was suddenly illuminated.

Although the room is not particularly bright, it seems much brighter.

Chen Qiu trotted down from the stage, looked around the concert hall which had not been cleaned up yet from the audience, and said to Ji Zhe with a hint of embarrassment.

"Sorry, sorry. The performance ended too late last night and everyone was tired, so I asked everyone to go home early and didn't clean up. I didn't expect you to come today."

"The performance last night?"

Ji Zhe quickly caught this key word and couldn't help but ask.

"You mean, you had a performance last night? If I remember correctly, your orchestra should have just finished the Mahler piece not long ago, how come..."

"Oh, Mahler One is our big performance every month, and this is a small performance of our orchestra, mainly for training."

Chen Qiu sat next to Ji Zhe and explained to Ji Zhe in a carefree manner.

"After all, the place where our orchestra is located is too small. If more than 100 people perform, the sound effects will be a bit explosive and not very pleasant. Therefore, we can only limit the training to 50 people, which is the best effect. If we only train with half of the people for a long time, the training effect will be lost. Therefore, we can only add more platoons."

Ji Zhe couldn't help but question: "For the musicians, their rehearsal effect has been achieved, but for you, the concertmaster of the orchestra, wouldn't it be too tiring?"

"It's okay if you're tired. What else can we do? We can't not perform. After all, I'm the conductor and they are the principals. If we can't set an example, how can our musicians listen to us? Don't you think so? Teacher Jizhe?"

Chen Qiu said to Ji Zhe with a smile.

His rhetorical question stumped Ji Zhe.

His first reaction was that Chen Qiu was pretending and that this guy was deliberately saying such big words.

but……

After his careful observation, he felt that Chen Qiu did not seem to be disguising himself at all.

This seems to be Chen Qiu’s own idea.

Chen Qiu indeed thought so.

And that's exactly what he did.

Looking at Chen Qiu's frank appearance, Ji Zhe was silent for a moment.

He had never seen a commander who was so consistent in his words and deeds, so consistent that he didn't know what to say.

Apart from never having heard of his name and giving himself a slight compliment, he seemed to have never seen Chen Qiu lie to cover up anything.

Compared to Chen Qiu, the other commanders are...

Ji Zhe coughed slightly to conceal his emotions, then nodded slightly to Chen Qiu and spoke.

"Yes, that's true. Conductors really need to lead by example. Conductor Chen Qiu is right. I can probably understand why the Harmony Symphony Orchestra is so successful."

After that, he took out a pen and paper from his pocket and asked Chen Qiu.

"Then Commander Chen Qiu, let's start the interview directly. My first question is..."

"Why did you rebuild the Harmony Symphony Orchestra? As far as I know, the Harmony Symphony Orchestra under your father Chen Yuan was basically on the verge of collapse at the time, and its ranking in Haicheng even dropped to 15th place!
“You know, a symphony orchestra ranked 15th is basically equivalent to having no fans, and performing is equivalent to losing money. Back then, even the Haicheng Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra ranked 8th in Haicheng.

"So, what motivated you to take over the baton of the Harmony Symphony Orchestra from your father and rebuild it to its current level?"

(End of this chapter)