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Traveling the Silk Road: Oberlin Delegation Visits China to Seek Collaborations

Assistant Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins conducts a master class at China's Szechuan Conservatory.

During spring break, seven Oberlin Conservatory faculty members visited China to lay the groundwork for future collaborations with that country’s musical leadership. The group spent most of its time at the Szechuan Conservatory in Cheng du.

“Our primary interest was to visit major schools to get a sense of their philosophy of teaching and to establish at least an informal relationship with the leaders of those institutions,” says Dean David H. Stull, who was joined on the trip by professors Richard Hawkins, Peter Rejto, George Sakakeeny, Robert Shannon, Peter Slowik, and Milan Vitek.

When Stull toured the Shanghai Conservatory of Music—the oldest conservatory in China—he encountered a big surprise. The Conservatory was co-founded by an Oberlin graduate, Huang Tzu ’26, who is known as one of the fathers of western music education in modern China.

During the trip, the Oberlin delegation gave master classes, visited three major concert halls in Beijing, and invited a young Chinese conductor named Fan Tao to visit Oberlin. In April, five members of the Szechuan Conservatory made a reciprocal visit to Oberlin to get a feel for American conservatory training.

“In the future, we may help run a summer institute in Shanghai, and our faculty may perform in Beijing,” says Stull. “We had a wonderful trip and are grateful to Sen Wang, a Chinese businessman who was a major sponsor of our visit.”