When Miguel Peñarroja Canós first learned about Youth Music Culture The Greater Bay Area (YMCG), there was no question that he wanted to take part in the 10-day intensive music training camp and festival based in Guangzhou, China. Although the Spanish clarinettist had previously lived in Vienna, Austria – the “capital of classical music” – and was already a working musician playing concerts across Europe, he had seen few platforms that offered the opportunity to train with a maestro like British conductor Daniel Harding, who has been YMCG’s music director since 2024. The fact that YMCG’s faculty members consisted of musicians drawn from the ranks of the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, among others, sealed the deal. “I didn’t think for more than one second – I wanted to go,” he says. “It’s almost impossible in Europe to find a festival with these conditions. I’m still amazed and excited to see these incredible teachers, and Daniel Harding, working with us every day, at every hour.” YMCG was created in 2017, the same year that the political framework for the newly dubbed “Greater Bay Area” – comprising Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong province – was finalised. The programme was spearheaded by Chinese maestro Yu Long, a conductor and lifetime honorary music director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. The “G” in YMCG originally stood for Guangdong but was changed in 2023. The programme, however, which takes place every year around January and February, continues to be presented under the auspices of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Guangdong Province. Megastar cellist Yo-Yo Ma was the festival’s first artistic director, a position he held until 2022. Harding took over in 2024 and the role changed to music director. Ninety-eight young musicians took part this year, performing in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Among other shows, the YMCG Orchestra – as the corresponding ensemble is called – performed a well-received concert at Guangzhou’s Xinghai Concert Hall on January 16, before taking to the Shenzhen Concert Hall on January 18. Both of those concerts saw the orchestra open with Recall and Cherish the Time by Chinese composer Wang Peicheng, which was selected from 57 submissions, followed by Benjamin Britten’s Nocturne, featuring the vocals of British tenor Ian Bostridge. The concerts concluded with Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Some orchestra members then travelled to Hong Kong to perform as chamber ensembles at the “Music All Around” Community Concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on January 19. I wonder if young Chinese musicians spend a lot of time playing alone. We watch the videos, we say, ‘Wow, they can play,’ [but when] they sit in the orchestra, they’re completely lost Daniel Harding, YMCG’s music director Although YMCG’s participants are predominantly Chinese, the team behind the programme has always had ambitious plans and an international mindset, says Chen Qing, president of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, the body primarily responsible for organising the programme. “We didn’t just target Chinese people or Asians. From the first cohort, we already had Europeans and Americans, as well as those from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan,” he says. Few musicians travel the globe to the same extent as Harding, who is also a pilot for Air France. He felt compelled to join YMCG because of his connection with youth orchestras, having played in three different ensembles a week growing up. “Youth orchestra playing was the reason I realised I wanted to be a musician, and also where I discovered what a conductor is,” he says. He also believes that youth orchestras are integral to classical music’s longevity. “Youth orchestras create two things: they create the musicians of the future, and maybe even more importantly, they create the audiences of the future. “A lot of these people here will go on to do other professions … but they’ll be the ones who come and listen because they knew music and loved music when they were young. “I also think that in a complicated world, it’s nice that we have exchanges like this – European musicians come and meet young Chinese people and Chinese audiences. As we always say, friendship in music is very important.” YMCG offers a wealth of musical knowledge to be gained from rehearsals, masterclasses and talks with some of the best working musicians in the world. Music camps like YMCG, as well as the long-established Asian Youth Orchestra and the Greater Bay Area Youth Orchestra – which was set up in 2023 by the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts – all provide a chance for young musicians to immerse themselves in a full orchestra. “The expectation for the tone is very different [than if you played alone], because aside from yourself, you have to pair well with the people you’re collaborating with,” says Hong Kong cellist Calvin Wong Tai-shing. Wong met mainland Chinese violinist Lin Ruifeng at the YMCG in 2024 and invited him to be part of a September 2024 concert that Wong’s concert production company, Transcend, organised at the Shanghai Concert Hall. Young musicians may be tempted to show off their skills, Peñarroja says, but have to remember that they are part of a team. “As a member of a group, it doesn’t matter if it’s chamber music or even solo music – you have to be really careful about what’s written in the score, and which line is following the music and which instrument has the importance in every moment.” Indeed, Harding has noticed that many young musicians who join the YMCG programme, especially Chinese ones, struggle on this front. “I wonder if young Chinese musicians spend a lot of time playing alone,” he says. “We watch the videos, we say, ‘Wow, they can play,’ [but when] they sit in the orchestra, they’re completely lost. “We’re trying to communicate to them that real music-making is always about exchange and listening,” he adds. “Not everybody is going to be a soloist, and even a soloist needs to know how to make music with other people, so we work a lot on this … “We tell them what to listen to, who to look at, so that they don’t stay in a box, but that they make music as a conversation.” After assessing which young musicians should receive the Steven Ying Music Fellowship Award – a new financial grant awarded to exceptional musicians to help cover flight and high-speed rail tickets to and from Guangzhou – the YMCG team decided not to allocate all the scholarships available for mainland Chinese musicians, even though they did so for musicians abroad. “When we compared everyone on the same level, we found that the European and American musicians were stronger,” Chen says. “After analysing it, we realised it made sense, because maybe the musicians from abroad who auditioned have already passed a certain stage. They have more knowledge. “They might already have graduated and are working, or are looking for work, so their ability and level has to be higher than those who are still studying undergrad in China.” Chinese violinist Zhang Jiyun, who was the concertmaster for this year’s YMCG Orchestra, is concerned about the motivations of young Chinese musicians. “I feel like more people may take it as a job,” he says. “[Some] people are just like, ‘I play the music. I play every single note right.’ Yes, it’s the first step of the profession, but it’s not the end. “In the future, I hope to see more people come to play Mahler music or Schubert music, and feel great because of this piece of music, not because: ‘My teacher asked me to do the festival,’ or ‘I have to get a job, I have to earn a living.’” That said, he believes the future is bright for young Chinese musicians. “If I think about now versus the past 10 years, it’s so much better. We’ve got so many audience members now, much more than before.” And it certainly helps that programmes like YMCG are offering young musicians such opportunities. “I couldn’t find another music festival that is so professional, with so many great musicians from the first-class classical music scene,” Zhang says. “Around the world, there’s not too many, and it’s quite amazing that it’s happening in China.”