“The conductor is a vessel to make the music happen with the orchestra”

What is your first childhood memory of classical music?

I think I was maybe three. We had a mini pump organ with pedals at home. My mom would use her foot to make the sound and I was sitting on her lap while trying to touch the piano keys. My parents wanted me to have a piano to practice but they couldn’t get one back then in the seventies. It was the end of the Cultural Revolution in China. So my dad actually decided to build a piano for me. I'm lucky to be trained by my own parents since a very young age.

At the age of 11 you continued your music studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. 

I studied a few years as a piano major until I met my first conducting teacher. Most conductors start in their twenties. I was 16 when my conducting teacher started to just bring me along in her rehearsals. I played all the accompaniment for her. She realized that I had a really good ear and very fast sight reading. She taught me a little bit basic conducting before I entered the college for conducting. When I was in my third year of conducting training the same teacher gave me my first opportunity to debut with the Central Opera House orchestra. I was 20. I think a lot has to do with chance. I think it just got snowballed.

When did you know you wanted to become a professional conductor?

I didn't until I was doing this Maazel-Vilar Conductor’s competition in Carnegie Hall in 2002. I was the co-winner of the competition. A journalist asked: “You've won the competition. Do you consider this as a career?” I said: “It might be a little late not to do it!” (laughs).

Have you experienced difficulties in pursuing your goals?

At times, if a rehearsal doesn't go quite well, that’s a moment when you kind of analyze what is to be done to make this situation better. You always try to push yourself to get better. But I suppose I'm living in a better time for conductors like myself, being female and coming from Asia, to be considered fairly about what we do and to be judged on the performances.

Is there still a double standard towards women of color in the world of classical music, however?

Oh yes. It's not just about conducting, it's about anything. I'm not sounding pessimistic or anything, but it's just how we are from a historical point of view. It's going to take a couple of centuries for it to disappear.

Do you see yourself as a role model for other female conductors in that regard? 

Well, it's not something I totally wish for myself, but unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m a role model. Only because I'm kind of early on in this field. But it's good. I’ve actually had two female teachers who went to Russia to study at the Moscow Conservatory. They were my role models when I was younger. If I can encourage anyone younger than me, in some way, then I'm happy to do it.

As a conductor, you are in control of a whole orchestra. You have to be very rational in a way but is it also possible to allow a bit of emotion and fantasy too? 

When making music, it has to be emotional. Otherwise it’s cold and empty. It needs to have shape and emotions and the right color, all of that. I want the conducting in ways to be expressive and to go together with the music. There's this extra edginess that you need to get to the higher level.

Are you still nervous before a concert after all those years? Or are you zen in every inch?

Everybody would have a little bit of tension, I guess. A couple of minutes right before a concert there’s a moment I actually really try to get myself to be so open to the challenges, to whatever the music is going to bring me. I want the music and the score to lead me. I’m the vehicle of whatever needs to be done. The conductor is a vessel, in a way, to make the music happen with the orchestra.

To conclude: what can we expect from the concerts at Bozar?

It’s been six years since I last worked with the Belgian National Orchestra. It’s a very expressive orchestra. This time we also have Mahler on the program. It’s going to sound just gorgeous. And Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is a very powerful score for the orchestra. I think it's a fantastic programme!