Chen Yi

And then at the same time, uh, uh, Harris Jacobs, uh, contact me.

Uh, contacted both of us, you know, uh, Chen Yi, and Chen Yi said, "I'm, uh, uh, afraid to working on the opera.

How about Zhou Long doing?" But, uh, Harris only, uh, started to ask for a song.

I said, "If you, if you asking for a song or a, a aria, uh, you know, we have a lot of students.

So Cerise herself is, uh, and her husband, uh, uh, Charles Jacobs, they're both, uh, opera lovers.

They travel the whole world and, and they purchased a apartment nearby the Metropolitan, so they just go to the opera, you know, very convenient.

Uh, and the, and she contacted us and, and we met him, uh, Chen Yi, and we go, oh, they go, go to...

And find out, you know, she's a, a attorney.

actually did not know him before I started working here Yeah, I mean, I started working here 20 years ago.

So actually, I knew Chen Yi, I'd heard her music, Zhou Long's wife, but I had not heard his music until I started teaching here.

And then very quickly learned, I mean, just a fabulous composer, loved learning about his music.

And of course, the students wanted to study his music because they were studying with him.

Yeah, so he's part of the famous class of 78.

They call them when they reopened the conservatory in Beijing and And all these composers who for 10 years hadn't been able to do this work came there.

And that's where he meets Chen Yi, his future wife, Tan Dun, Bright Shang.

I mean, all these people who are coming to the United States eventually in the 1980s and help transform classical music.

Yeah.

And you've spoken with composers like Reena Esmail and Chen Yi and Alex Shapiro on your podcast.

Has any conversation changed how you think about your own career?

Well, it makes me think of that whole idea of of comparing one's work to another's.