‘I play because I want to bring fame to China’: meet the BBC Young Musician of the Year

Fang Zhang, the new BBC Young Musician of the Year, is the first candidate from China to win, and only the second percussionist. I first saw him play at the semi-finals, and his talent was blazingly clear. He showed the most extraordinary stamina and energy, and absolutely held the stage. Angela Dixon, CEO of Saffron Hall, was one of the judges, and remembers the moment when Zhang learned he had made the final. “He wasn’t really listening, he assumed it couldn’t possibly be him.”

Indeed it’s Zhang’s modesty that strikes me when I meet him via Zoom. After a year at home in China (though studying remotely at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester), this sunny-tempered 17-year-old with a taste for stylish shirts has been back in Britain for the broadcast of the final, and seems unfazed by the media interest already buzzing round him.

When I ask him how he feels about winning the competition, Zhang doesn’t claim the glory for himself. “I just hope it will encourage people to take more interest in percussion,” he says.

So what makes him so special? “Zhang has this extraordinary ability to draw colours out of instruments,” says Dixon. “He played a piece for just one instrument, the marimba, and I couldn’t believe how many different sounds he got out of it,” she says. “And he plays so musically, there’s nothing mechanical whatever about his playing.”

Zhang’s journey to winning the world’s most prestigious youth music prize began in his home town of Pingdingshan, a bustling industrial city of 4 million in the central Chinese province of Henan. Although his household was musical – his parents run a music education business and his mother teaches singing – the impetus for Zhang’s first music lessons weren’t musical at all. “My parents wanted me to go to an after-school activity club,” says Zhang, “and I chose a percussion-playing group.”

It was as simple and arbitrary as that, and if the seven-year old Zhang had chosen drawing, or football, we wouldn’t now know his name. But he turned out to have a huge talent, and progressed so fast that at 10 years old he won the national Chinese Young Musician of the Year competition.

Then came a string of foreign trips to play in youth music festivals, firstly to America. How did it feel to encounter groups from other countries? “Well in terms of technique it wasn’t much different to what I was used to,” he says, “but in terms of new cultures and new kinds of music I learned so much.”

When I ask what impressions he got of the country, he’ll only say that he wasn’t too impressed by the cuisine. “The Chinese restaurants in Germany were much better,” he laughs.

Having established their son was talented, Zhang’s parents were keen to nurture it, but as he explains, this was for very pragmatic reasons. “In China, it can be hard to get a job if you only have the school qualifications,” he explains. “It is good to have a practical skill as well, so they really encouraged my musical talents.”

I have to thank them so much, they made a lot of sacrifices for me. I could not study to a high level in my home town, I had to travel to Shanghai [more than 550 miles from his home] and my father came with me.”

I imagine this meant joining the junior department of a conservatoire, as would happen in this country. What actually happened was quite shocking. “I went to Shanghai to study with the head of the Percussion Association of China, Chen Shaolun, who is a wonderful musician,” he explains.

“But he had to do his job during the day, and could only teach at night. So I had to sleep during the day, and begin studying at around nine o’clock, with some other students. We would work until about 3 or 4am and then sleep until lunchtime.”

This sort of regime would be regarded as child abuse in the UK. How does he feel about it himself? “Well at the time it was terrible, but when I look back I see it was a good time. I learned so much.” Zhang also performed his first world premiere. “The daughter of our teacher composed a piece especially for me,” he says.

It was during that period, when he was playing for yet another performing competition, that Zhang met Yu Le, a juror who was also a percussion professor at the Royal Northern College of Music. He suggested Chetham’s School, and after auditioning Zhang was awarded a bursary by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation to study there, beginning in September 2018. He is full of praise for the school, and enjoyed Manchester, though he says he finds living in the UK very expensive.

It was his percussion tutor at Chetham’s who suggested to Zhang that he apply for the BBC Young Musician of the Year. “At first I did not like the pieces, but as I worked on them I understood them better.” When I ask what his own tastes in music are, he ponders and then gives a surprising answer. “I don’t like pieces which you understand immediately. I like things you can hear 10 or 100 times and you can still enjoy them.” On his CV, he endearingly names “playing percussion” as his hobby, but when pressed admits that in his rare moments of down-time he enjoys watching Sherlock Holmes films.

Zhang has the future all mapped out: first a degree-level course in Shanghai, then a Master’s degree somewhere in Europe. “I thought about Germany and France, but I think England is best, because then I won’t have to learn another language!” he says. But I get the feeling that ultimately he’ll be returning home. “I enjoy having new experiences and playing new things,” he says, “but when I am on stage I am not there for myself, I am there to represent China. I play music because I want to bring fame to my country.”

That’s a sentiment we would do well to remember when we try to understand how a gifted lad from a provincial city in China found the sheer grit to win a tough competition, in the full glare of publicity, on the other side of the world.

Watch the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year via BBC iPlayer