In my opinion, most of the special columns of TV media have been excessively entertaining but lack of cultures in recent years. The materials sent by the general director of the program Everlasting Classics surprised me. What can we do to make this program to include the high standard of the poems, and also reflect the cultural quality of CCTV?

As an educator in musical education, I have always believed that music higher education carries the mission of cultural transmission and exploring the truth, it also contains the historical responsibility such as hold fast to the art spiritual and cultivating the spiritual civilization, and even can remember the duties for blending into the cultures of normal families while going towards to the top of the world. We would never develop our students as the craftsmen who only master the music skills. We shall leave the natural imprints with the bloodline of Chinese nation to the generations by penetrating the mission of “inheriting Chinese culture, raising Chinese melody, training Chinese talents, and developing Chinese music” into the true nature of the roots of cultures, the soul of the nation and the foundation of independence.

Everyone says that classical poetry is not easy to read and understand. Especially in the 21st century, our language system has entered an era of rapid development and innovation. However, as the audience can see, we received praise from our audiences covering all ages after we gave the classics a new life with heart! From this point of view, the language system evolved with the evolution of human civilization, but the language has never changed. The language approach I mention here is the cultural channel that the Chinese nation has given the Chinese people. Even though the way of expressing is ever changing, our roots have not changed. From the Song of Tomorrow, Dark Prunus Mume and Mosses, it is proved once again that the root of the culture has the power of appealing and spreading. It can only be said that in the past we had some deviations in the methods of education and guidance. When the classics have a perfect combination of language and notes, we can better enter the traditional culture and become engaged and infiltrated. We are willing to be enlightened and guided. Everlasting Classics is a good example.

Art education needs to solve the problem of the disconnection between tradition and times. The creators isolate the aesthetics of the niche, and the performers indulge in secularism. The process of learning from the classics requires a great realization. The classic poems that have been circulated so far have seemed unattainable. In fact, they are the sensations of our sages in the great practice. Their vitality comes from emotion and spirit, deeply affecting generation after generation. This fully shows that art comes from the truth that life is sublimed to life. We often show truth by our words instead by our heart. The consequence of this is that “speaking is better than singing”, reflecting the fact that there is a plateau without a peak of artistic creation. Chants of the Classics can be called as a Chinese music school! The Chinese music school is based on Chinese musical elements, with Chinese style as its tone, with Chinese composers as the carrier and Chinese works as the school of music. The ability to bring the highest ideological realm of the outstanding Chinese traditional culture to the masses with a light and friendly approach to the public is the greatest contribution made by this TV program, and it also raises an important issue for our art education.

LIANG Jun’s Mosses adapted from YUAN Mei, a gifted scholar from the Qing Dynasty, was able to be so inspiring after the deduction of modern music that intoxicated hundreds of millions of Chinese people overnight. “Where the sun cannot reach, youth can find. If the moss is as small as a rice flower, it also learns how to bloom like a peony.” No matter how tiny the life is, it has moment for blooming beautifully. This work is very fresh and authentic. In the form of entertaining, the teacher Liang Jun helped the children in the mountainous areas in Guizhou to experience that both of the essence of education and the essence of art are being extra  ordinary and outstanding at the same time since childhood.

Mosses are so simple but earthy, but it is also shocking and great. I once said that educators must have the same quality as that of the stone arch bridge with deep Chinese connotations: we bend our waist for paving the road. Liang Jun made his selfless dedication to build a bridge from “Little space” to “Big World”. Through this bridge, the children gained new knowledge; they planted their dreams and saw the future. It is hoped that the Everlasting Classics will allow us to change our understanding of artistic creation and art education. Musical arts are by no means the superficial and singing and playing instruments. It can purify our soul and shape our ordinary and outstanding personality.

On the Chinese New Year celebration party of 2018, General Secretary XI said that “live life to the fullest can be called as a happy life”. In my opinion, the poetry Mosses delivers “it learns to bloom like peony at the place where the sun cannot reach”. It means blooming of commonness by grinding willpower and strengthening beliefs in struggling. As an appreciation guest of Chants of the Classics, I don’t have the ability of the appreciation for it. We are all too small in front of the extensive and profound Chinese cultures. Today, the music inherits that people must have the warmth and respect for the traditional cultures.

(Author: WANG Liguang, President of China Conservatory of Music)

Guangming Online (February 20, 2018)