This is a Chinese language programme with Chinese subtitles.
On a golden September afternoon in Beijing, writer and critic Rudolph Tang met Dr. Wu Dielan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Central Conservatory of Music, just outside the old city gate of Xibianmen. Their conversation—part of an ongoing dialogue about contemporary music—began with an unlikely metaphor: listening to modern music, they agreed, is a little like eating something unfamiliar, perhaps even daring.
Both have been exploring how audiences might approach the sometimes-daunting world of contemporary composition. For Tang, who has spent years documenting China’s evolving musical landscape, and for Dr. Wu, who studies both Chinese and Western compositional trends, modern music is not an elite or alien pursuit—it’s a sensory experience that demands curiosity, patience, and a willingness to taste before judging.
Modern Music as an Acquired Taste
Tang believes that appreciating new music requires the same openness as trying a new cuisine. Just as food culture evolves—introducing fusion dishes or revisiting forgotten recipes—so too does the sound world of modern composers. She notes how a listener’s first encounter with avant-garde sounds can feel “unfamiliar” or even “uncomfortable,” but that initial reaction is often the first step toward discovery.
Dr Wu adds that every listener carries a kind of aural memory, shaped by the melodies and harmonies of earlier generations. When a composer weaves echoes of something familiar—a folk tune, a Baroque form, or a film-score motif—listeners are drawn in by recognition before being surprised by something entirely new. It’s that tension between recognition and innovation, he says, that makes modern music so rewarding.
The Platforms of Discovery
The two also discuss where modern music can be found today. Tang points out that streaming platforms like Apple Music now feature many recordings by contemporary Chinese composers, making what was once niche music accessible to global audiences. Dr. Wu mentions her long-time fascination with the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall, praising its immersive sound quality and its ability to bring the concert experience into the listener’s living room.
Other platforms such as Medici.tv, she notes, offer a wide array of performances—from cutting-edge premieres to reimagined classics—helping audiences discover works that might otherwise remain within the walls of a conservatory.
But nothing, both agree, replaces the immediacy of a live concert. For Dr. Wu, attending the Beijing Modern Music Festival each year is a reminder that the concert hall remains an irreplaceable space for human connection. A recording can reproduce sound, but not the shared anticipation, the risk, or the thrill of creation happening in real time.
From the Concert Hall to the Dinner Table
Tang recalls his own early encounters with modern music—before he even knew to call it that. He discovered Alfred Schnittke on the radio, captivated by how the composer twisted fragments of Mozart and other familiar classics into strange new forms. “It was like tasting something you thought you knew,” he reflects, “only to realize the chef had added a completely unexpected spice.”
Dr. Wu, amused, extends the analogy. Experimental cuisine—like molecular gastronomy—aims to stimulate not only the palate but also the imagination. Similarly, she says, avant-garde music invites the listener to engage all their senses, to experience rather than simply consume.
Tang recalls a culinary fad in Shanghai: mào kǎoyā, literally “spicy stewed roast duck,” a playful fusion of Sichuan hot pot and Beijing roast duck. The dish, he laughs, is not new to everyone—friends from Chongqing assured him it’s been around for years—but to him, it was a revelation. “That’s exactly how modern music works,” he muses. “What feels new to one listener may be familiar to another. But the act of discovery—of tasting it for the first time—is what keeps it alive.”
Staying Curious
As their conversation winds down, both agree that curiosity is the essential ingredient in both art and appetite. Whether sampling a strange new dish or attending a concert of unfamiliar sounds, openness transforms the experience from challenge to delight.
Tang calls for audiences to “stay hungry”—to borrow Steve Jobs’s phrase—not for fame or novelty, but for fresh experiences that expand perception. “Feeling,” he insists, “comes before judgment.”
Dr Wu nods. For her, every live performance, every stream of a new work, is a reminder that music—like food—is made to be shared, savored, and sometimes puzzled over. “Not every dish becomes a favorite,” she admits, “but every taste teaches us something.”
An Invitation to Listen
For both, the future of contemporary music lies not just in creation, but in listening: in audiences willing to step out of their comfort zones, explore new textures, and celebrate the living composers shaping the sound of now.
As the afternoon light fades over Beijing, Tang and Dr Wu leave Xibianmen with the same conviction: that music, like cuisine, is a reflection of culture at its most vibrant. To listen to modern music, then, is not merely to hear new sounds—it is to taste the world as it changes.
