Daniel Foster is the Principal Viola in the NSO.

While in Beijing I had the opportunity to visit Beijing's Central Conservatory and give a viola master class. The Central Conservatory consists of two schools: a middle school/high school and a college conservatory. The lower school is considered particularly fine–some 3000 violists audition for only about 6 positions. The technical training the students receive and the discipline that they develop is, as one would expect, outstanding. Many of the most talented high-schoolers, however, opt to continue their college studies abroad, either in Europe or the U.S., where the teaching is more nuanced and gives these tremendously gifted students an opportunity of developing greater musical depth and their own unique musical voices.

The master class itself was in itself much like any master class. I heard six students ranging in age from twelve to nineteen. In ability they ranged from tremendous to mediocre, with the youngest student showing great promise–technically well set up, but a completely blank slate musically.

The day before the master class, which took place at the college campus, I had a tour of the conservatory's high school, housed in a 16-story building across town from the college. While much about the atmosphere took me back to my own conservatory days in the U.S., I took note of two significant differences: firstly, in addition to programs in all the orchestral instruments, piano, and voice, they have a large traditional Chinese instrument department as well. It was interesting to hear students practicing scales and arpeggios on instruments whose sounds were completely new to me. Secondly, in each practice room (there was a dedicated room for each student at the school), there was a camera, and I was informed that if a student stopped practicing for too long, a voice would sound over the loundspeaker in his or her room admonishing the delinquent student to get back to work!