YULIN YU | Undergrad life
Chinese New Music Program
Process design+ Content Design + Advertisement Design + Production
Chinese New
Music Program
Producer, Director, and Curator: Yulin Yu
Associate producer: Qi Li, Hanwen Fan,
John McHugh, Alyssa de la Rosa,
Musicians from Jacobs school of music
My Role
Mangement, Fundrising, Curation
and Advertisement Strategic
The “Chinese New Music Program” is designed to help audiences work towards answering the question “How do culture and education influence a composer to produce a specific piece,” while simultaneously enjoying music. The program has provided knowledge about the values of Chinese “Wen Ren” culture and contemporary classical composition, derived from interviews with the composers. In order to effectively convey this content to audiences and to improve their experience in the concert, the program used a multi-media approach which incorporated cultural explanation in the program booklet, musical interpretation through a student presentation and composers’ notes, and a composer talk section in both video form and as a panel discussion after the performance. To this point, the program has involved more than 100 musicians and exposed new Chinese music to more than 400 audience members in Bloomington and the surrounding area.
Problem to solve
· How should we curate the work? (How to present the cultural & musical information to an audience)
· How should we conduct our advertisements?
· How should we improve and how did we improve?
Curation
In addition to offering the music, program theme notes, lyrics, composer’s notes, and the composer's talk section; presenters are also included in order to help audiences understand the music and culture.
In theme notes (pics below), I used the concept of fine art gallery curation to present the main themes of "Wen Ren". On the second page, the music list and musicians are presented.
The composer's notes are presented before the lyrics. Through observation, we found that the audiences liked to read the program notes when listening to contemporary classical music. We also asked composers specifically to point out the foundation of their creative process as it is related to "Wen Ren" culture and historical composition.
Presenter and composer talk section hosted in the concert. Presenter or composer introduced questions to challenge the audience before the music. After the concert, a composer talk panel was hosted. Audiences actively communicated with composers and I about their interpretation of the music and culture.
It was determined that the most effective advertising campaign for this program was
Theme introduction before the concert
Presenter announced before the music
Advertisment
It was determined that the most effective advertisement campaign for this program was
1. Emailing professors to request announcements in classes related to Chinese culture and music.
2. Social media advertising with video promotions (more than 500 views)
3. Marking the date on the art museum calendar
Another advertisement approaches included: posters and organization reach out
Video Advertisement
Poster (Location change because of weather issue)
We asked audience members to sign up before the concert. During the sign-up, we ask them where they heard about the concert and collected their emails for future concert advertisement.
According to the feedback from the second concert (1/3 of the total audience signed up), we found that around 40% of audience members learned about the concert from a Chinese Art and Composition class announcement. Around 30% came because of the art museum online calendar. Around 20% learned from Facebook Events page. The rest of them were mostly invited by friends.
Concert Timeline and Record
Video Clip of the First Concert: Metaphor Through Music: A Concert Celebrating Chinese Traditions (Music and Themes)
1. Metaphor Through Music: A Concert Celebrating Chinese Nov 15, 2015 IU Art Museum
Timeline: Sep - Nov 2015
2. East Meet West: A Concert of New Chinese Music Jan 31, 2016 IU Art Museum
Timeline: Dec 2015 - Jan 2016
3. Literati Music: A new music showcase April 6, 2017 Indiana Memorial Union
Timeline: Jan - April 2017
East Meet West: A Concert of New Chinese Music
(PS: The video record of Literati Music didn't purpose for video recording. The video below are pieces from Literati music but record in different events. )
Phantasms (遐想集) for sinfonietta by Yihan Chen
Chàngqiāng 1 "Our Outcry" 唱腔一《呼喊》for cello and piano by Yihan Chen
Improvement Process
What's New
1
Included gallery curation principles in the concert
Asked individual what we can improve
Problem
Feedback from audience members indicated that Chinese music written using western music principles had lost some of its cultural core
presentation take too long, and lack of practise
Things We Improved
2
Introduced New Music
Used sign-up sheets to collect email addresses and gain information "where did you hear about us"
Added composer discussion panels
Posters and organization reach out were less successful than other methods
Composer's notes lacked some information
Changed from student presenters to composers
Selected contemporary music which deeply concerned its cultural core
Audience received deep connection with the music
3
Became profitable
Asked for new commission applications
Introduced the orchestra
Produced Video advertisements
It was difficult to find the balance between clients and musical professionals
Only reached out to hundreds of audience members per semester, lack of continuity
Produced video advertisements
Wrote more in-depth composer’s notes
Sent email invitations from the previous sign-up sheet
P.S the number on the left indicates the order of our concert
Next thing we tried to solve was how to involve technology into our musical production to assess its value to people's daily lives, instead of having one concert each semester.