Violinist finds home in Harbin orchestra

Lee Tien-hsuan, a 43-year-old violinist from Taipei, Taiwan, has been busier than ever preparing for the China Harbin Summer Concert series this year.

The 37th session of the premier music event in Harbin, northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, is set to get underway in August.

"In Harbin, we have performances almost every week, with a rich repertoire ranging from classical to modern, from Western to local music," said Lee. "I really love the enthusiasm of the audience and the atmosphere of performing in the city, where the audience often stays for a long time after the performance, hoping to interact with us."

Lee became the Harbin Symphony Orchestra's first violinist in 2019, unfolding a new chapter in his life, he said.

Music is in the roots of Lee's family.

His grandmother graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and was a talented singer and pianist. His father also enjoyed playing the piano in his spare time.

"I grew up with the sound of piano," he said. "At around four years old, I began to learn to play the piano."

However, for Lee, the piano wasn't his true passion.

"In primary school, a teacher suggested I take up the violin instead," he said. "My parents accepted the suggestion, which changed my artistic trajectory.

"I immediately fell in love with this musical instrument as soon as I touched it," he said. "I never felt bored with practicing it for several hours a day."

Lee furthered his studies in the violin at a university in Taiwan from 2001 to 2005. In 2009, he obtained a master's degree from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in the United States.

After graduation, he returned to Taipei and became a freelance musician, participating in performances, teaching students and making music recordings.

"At that time, my knowledge of the Chinese mainland mainly came from the internet," he said. "In 2010, I visited an international musical instrument exhibition in Shanghai, which was quite impressive," Lee said. "The scale and the professionalism of the exhibition, as well as the vibrant young musicians showed me more possibilities and opportunities.

"At that time, there were very few professional symphony orchestras in Taipei, and opportunities were scarce for orchestra musicians," said Lee. "Therefore, I began collecting recruitment information from orchestras on the Chinese mainland."

At the end of 2018, Lee got the news that the Harbin Symphony Orchestra was recruiting and immediately applied.

In February 2019, he received a notice for an audition in Harbin. Lee stood out and joined the orchestra in June.

"It was a quite unique experience for me living in temperatures below — 30 C in the winter for the first time," he said. "However, the enthusiasm from the audiences at the concert hall was enough to melt the extreme coldness."

What surprised him even more was the city's musical heritage — a century-old symphony orchestra, high-level music academies, frequent international performances, unique performance venues, as well as artistic masters like conductor Tang Muhai, who is also the musical director of the orchestra.

"I also have the chance to perform quite differently from the past," he said. "Our performances include folk songs, ballads and even Peking Opera and yangbanxi (a series of revolution-themed modern Peking Opera), which I had never performed in Taiwan."

To understand the content of the performance, he would listen repeatedly before the rehearsal and watch relevant movies.

Lee has also toured with the orchestra, visiting Beijing, the provinces of Hebei, Guangdong, Liaoning, Zhejiang and Shandong. The orchestra has also played in Austria, Japan and Russia.

In June 2023, together with three local musicians, Lee founded his own chamber music ensemble named Ink.

"Ink is black, representing that our music performance group is from Heilongjiang," he said. "I hope our team can travel across the country and promote Harbin via music."

"I also hope there will be more young people from Taiwan who come to Harbin to develop their careers," he added.