It was a regular Monday evening on Sept 27. Beijing's Sanlitun area, one of the capital's busiest areas for nightlife, was bustling with people, either hanging out with friends, having dinner at restaurants or shopping. It seemed to be out of nowhere that a group of young Chinese musicians gathered together and started to perform. The outdoor concert, featuring programs such as Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's Piano Trio No 3 in F Minor, Op 65, three short pieces by French composer Jacques Ibert and German composer Felix Mendelssohn's String Quartet No 2 in A Minor, Op 13, soon attracted an audience.

"All of the musicians are high school students. We want to showcase these talented musicians here in Sanlitun, which is a popular destination for young people," says Lyu Jia, veteran conductor and artistic director of the National Center for the Performing Arts.

After the concert, he announced the inauguration of the Global Chinese Youth Symphony Orchestra, a new platform for young Chinese musicians.

Lyu notes that the new orchestra is not only open to young Chinese musicians destined for a professional career, but also to learners, who take music as a hobby.

"What matters is their passion for music. We look for people who love music sincerely. They may become doctors, teachers or scientists after they grow up but music will always be a big part of their lives," says Lyu.

The idea of launching the Global Chinese Youth Symphony Orchestra is an extension of another brainchild of Lyu's－the Global Chinese Orchestra－which he co-founded with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council in 2015.Since then, Chinese musicians overseas have returned home every September to perform as the Global Chinese Orchestra alongside their domestically based peers.

As Lyu says, every year, the annual concert is like a reunion party. However, due to the ongoing pandemic, the annual event was canceled in 2020 and 2021.

"We want to build up the Global Chinese Youth Symphony Orchestra as a platform for young Chinese musicians to communicate and share music, just as we have achieved with the Global Chinese Orchestra," Lyu says, adding that musicians from the senior orchestra will also give master classes to members of the youth ensemble.

Lyu, 57, was born in Shanghai and studied conducting at the University of Arts in Berlin in 1988 after graduating from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

In the same year, he won the golden prize and "favorite conductor "award at the Antonio Pedrotti international conducting competition in Trento, Italy. Then, in 1991, he was appointed as the chief conductor of the Italian opera house, Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, making him not only the opera house's first chief conductor from Asia, but also its youngest. In 2011, he returned to China and served as the artistic director of the National Center for the Performing Arts and the China NCPA Orchestra's chief conductor.

Lyu adds that among the performers of the concert held in Sanlitun are winners of China Youth Music Competition－Hummingbird Music Award, which is a competition and an award established in 2015 and is based on the German Music Council's Jugend Musiziert, the most well-known music competition for young performers in Germany, which was first held in 1963.

Winners of the two competitions visit each other's countries and are offered a week of training and the opportunity to perform.

Zhang Yong, the founder and organizer of the China Youth Music Competition－Hummingbird Music Award, says it aims to promote amateur music education, especially in chamber music, so applicants are not necessarily in full-time music training institutes.