December 1-2, during this cold weekend that just passed, more than 20 top leaders and industry elites of the Chinese music industry arrived at Boston Berkeley Music Academy and attended the second Berklee China-U.S. Music Summit.
The vigorous development of China-Western cultural exchange projects is the general trend of the current era. Among them, the scale of Chinese students going to the United States for special music learning and exchanges has steadily increased, and music students in the United States are also increasingly interested in the rising Chinese music market. In order to enhance Berkeley students' understanding of the Chinese music industry, further stimulate students' interest in the rising Chinese music market, and increase the recognition and attention of Chinese music forms and culture in Boston and even the United States, the Berkeley Conservatory of Music China Music Industry Club held the second Berkeley Sino-US Music Forum from 1 February to 2 February 2, 2018 at the Berkeley Conservatory of Music in Boston. The highly anticipated event was organized by CMI (Chinese Music Industry Club), the Berkeley Chinese Music Industry Club. CMI is a public welfare organization established by the Berkeley Conservatory of Music to promote the exchange of music and culture between China and the West. The club is directly affiliated with the Office of the President of Berkeley. The founder/chair is Gao Li, and the vice chairman is Jie Shengni. The club is mainly responsible for cultural exchange activities between Berkeley students and China, including Chinese Music Culture Week, Master Class, Theme Lectures, Career Development, Large-scale Performances, Academic Exchanges between Chinese and American students, etc.
Attendees to this forum include corporate leaders from NetEase Cloud Music , Tencent Music Entertainment Group , Modern Sky, Weibo Music, United Entertainment, Sony/ATV China, China Music World, Qida Music, Seed Music , Tixing Creative Culture, Jungle Culture, MDIIO, Learnable AI, Visual Technology, etc., as well as industry elites such as well-known music critics, music producers, film and television musicians. They shuttled through various teaching buildings in Berkeley in the cold wind, contributing their valuable experience, opinions and help to Chinese musicians studying in North America and students from other countries interested in China.
This forum has rich content, including music marketing, music technology, industry history, lyrics and music copyright, artist management, record companies/labels, film and television music, music festivals, etc. The forum has a variety of forms, including roundtable discussions, special lectures, and master classes, and also provides Berkeley students with one-on-one interview sessions with the speakers. The Berkeley Sino-US Music Ceremony was also grandly held on the night of the second day of the forum. The music ceremony was directed by Jonathan Foo, a live music producer from Singapore and Berkeley graduate, as the director, and put a wonderful and successful end to the forum.
Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony of this forum was attended by Li Liyan, Cultural Counselor of the Chinese Consulate General in New York, and Lawrence J. Simpson, Vice President of the Berkeley Conservatory of Music, attended and delivered speeches. Counselor Li Liyan emphasized the importance of cultural exchanges to Sino-US relations, pointing out that music, as a universal language, can tie people together across cultures. Lawrence J. Simpson, Vice President of Berkeley, said in a speech that exchanges and cooperation in the field of culture are the basis for the continued good cooperation between China and the United States. The development of China's music industry needs to learn from the world's advanced experience, including the American industry. China's broad music market also welcomes American professionals to actively participate and carry out cooperation. The vice president hopes that the Berkeley China-US Music Industry Forum will contribute to promoting music and cultural exchanges between the two countries and promoting China-US friendship.
Application of music technology
Application of technology in music is a focus of this forum and is also the core force that promotes the advancement of the music industry at present.In the first roundtable discussion, guests Panos A. Panay (VP of Berkeley Innovation Strategy Center), Wang Lei (President of United Entertainment), Justin Gray (founder of MDIIO) and Zhu Jingran (Seed Music Director and Producer) focused on the impact of artificial intelligence and big data on the music market, and denied the view that "artificial intelligence will replace the composer", affirming the importance of modern musicians need to learn information technology and basic programming. Guests including Zhu Jingran, Wang Guan (Doctor of Artificial Intelligence) and other people later focused on the impact of various new technologies on music creation and broadcasting in their speeches.
streaming platform
This forum was fortunate to invite Ding Bo (Vice President of NetEase Cloud Music), Deng Linhai (Musician Project Director of Tencent Music Entertainment Group) and Yang Wei to share the strategies and advantages of the three major platforms in music communication and artist marketing, as well as the changes brought by technological progress to the music streaming platform. Big data can not only optimize user experience and music recommendation algorithms, but also allow the platform to better understand user habits and music market trends, and instead allow musicians to better understand their audience and better disseminate and market their own music. Copyright providers and streaming media platforms are gradually improving their protection for musicians, while other services are also increasing and diversifying simultaneously.
(Vice President of NetEase Cloud Music Ding Bo)
(Scene of the Second Berkeley Sino-US Music Forum, the characters in the picture are from the left: Tencent Music Entertainment Group Musician Project Director Deng Linhai, Vice President of NetEase Cloud Music Ding Bo, and Weibo Music Director Yang Wei)
Cultivate original musicians
Sina Weibo uses its traffic advantages to help musicians accumulate and manage fans, give musicians more personalized display space, and find high-quality original content creators through the Music Celebrity Program, etc. With its main song list and review functions, NetEase Cloud Music mainly serves independent musicians and their subdivided music markets, and cultivates original musicians. Tencent Music System uses multi-line products including QQ Music, Kugou Music, Quanmin K Song, etc. in its system to help musicians expand their communication channels and income sources. Rza Li (Creative and Production Director) and Huashan (Managing Director) from Sony/ATV China also extended the discussion on the forum after meeting with 51 musicians one-on-one. All rights reserved, opportunities, challenges and developments.
Live Performance
In recent years, the sales of physical albums have increased and decreased with the popularity of streaming platforms, and live performances have been paid more attention to as a stable income guarantee. At the forum, Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music both stated that they were actively preparing offline live concerts and music festivals to provide musicians with space for live performances. There is also Steven Fock, CEO of China Music World, who talked about how to hold a large live music festival in China, and Nick Perrett, the artist brokerage director of electronic music brand jungle culture, who introduced the development of electronic music scene in China in recent years.
Artist Promotion and Management
How to enter the market, promote yourself, and accumulate fans is the most concerned issue for every Berkeley musician. This forum invited many heavyweight artist producers, agents and record company presidents, including Shen Lihui (founder/CEO of Modern Sky), Xu Huanliang (founder of Qida Music, mentor of JJ Lin ), Linda Lee (manager of Yuan Yawei ) and Nick Perrett (director of Jungle Culture Artist). In terms of artist management, the focus of discussion includes how record companies decide to sign artists, the relationship between artists, agents and record companies, the significance and role of agents and labels to artists, and the emotional management of artists.
Master Class
This forum’s master class is also very popular with students, especially the master class "Modern Music Production of the Chinese Film Industry" taught by Beijing Film Academy/Modern Conservatory of Music and musician Dong Dongdong , which was full.
Berkeley has always received attention from many media as the world's top music academy.The media that cooperated with CMI this time include CCTV4, Phoenix Finance, World Journal, Tencent, Baidu and other large official media, and more than a dozen Boston local media attended Yuan Yawei's press conference. Yuan Yawei came to Berkeley this time to perform at the second Berkeley Sino-US Music Ceremony, and to be awarded the position of honorary ambassador of the Chinese region of Berkeley Conservatory.
(Yuan Yawei)
On the eve of the performance, Yuan Yawei accepted a press conference hosted by student representative Sherry Li and attended by more than a dozen media outlets from Boston and New York at Loft in Berkeley. In the interview, Yuan Yawei mentioned that she came to Berkeley and said that she "feels finding home" and suggested that students "as long as they have dreams, they should pursue them bravely, believe in themselves, and love what you love." Yuan Yawei loves the two main arrangements of this music ceremony, Walter Kwan (Guan Haode) and Eugene Sun (Sun Yuchen), and invited them to the stage at the end of the press conference, bluntly saying that they will continue to exchange and cooperate in the future.
This forum has many highlights, but the one that is most waiting to be seen is the Berkeley Sino-US Music Ceremony on the evening of December 2. The early-selling music ceremony this year was directed by Jonathan Foo, who had directed four full shows, was the director and planned by CMI Chairman Ko Li, and Berkeley graduate Qu Yang was the music director, Walter Kwan and Eugene Sun were the deputy music director, and Xie Yuming was the sound engineer. Terry Zhong and FACEV ID participated in electronic production. The entire performance took seven months of preparation, with the theme of the integration of Chinese and Western music forms, and was rehearsed by more than 50 student musicians, dancers and staff from more than 10 countries for more than 100 hours. It can be said to be the peak level of student performances around the world. Berkeley President Roger H. Brown formally awarded Yuan Yawei the title of "Honorary Ambassador of the Berkeley Conservatory of China" midway through the ceremony and issued a certificate. Yuan Yawei later made a sincere speech in Chinese and English.
The second Berkeley Sino-US Music Forum closed successfully in a song "Change the World". The two-day event not only gave Berkeley students many opportunities to interact and learn from industry leaders, but also allowed industry leaders to see the musical talent and organizational ability of Berkeley students, and also allowed Berkeley school leaders to have a deeper understanding of the enthusiasm of Chinese students and the potential of the Chinese market.
CMI Chairman Gao Li mentioned that the Chinese music industry needs more fresh blood in the future to improve the status of Chinese music in the world, so that people from all over the world can better understand the Chinese music and music market. As a result, he founded CMI with his partners in 2017. In the summer of 2017, Coli returned to China and, with the help of Berkeley alumnus and current CEO of China Music World, Steven Fock, invited industry tycoons to support the project with former vice president Huang Yijun. He hopes that such activities can be held continuously, providing platforms and opportunities for more outstanding students, and thereby attracting more overseas talents to return and contributing to the Chinese music scene.
I hope all the guests and guests who participated in the event will gain something. Let us look forward to the next Berkeley Sino-US Music Forum!
Event photos are special thanks to: Kelly Davidson; Dave Green; Qian Yichen; Tan Xiao; Wang Zhuojun; Tia agency team
