Guizhou orchestra gets foreign conductor

When Italian conductor Rico Saccani was appointed the music director of Guiyang Symphony Orchestra in September, he felt like he was home.

"Almost all the familiar faces when I first came are still here. I kept in touch with several of the orchestra members over the past two years," says Saccani, 64.

Saccani and his predecessor in the orchestra, Chinese conductor Chen Zuohuang, met in the United States as students in the early 1980s.