China’s first lady Peng Liyuan visited one of the world’s leading music and performing arts school – The Juilliard School – and also witnessed their formal announcement to expand into China as she makes her last stop of her US visit.
Peng, a renowned former army soprano herself, toured the school in the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts and watched a performance put on by students in New York on Monday, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
A music master’s student performed the Chinese folk song Xiao He Tang Shui (The Rippling Brook), with Peng giving personal tips and demonstrating techniques at first hand to the applause of the audience, according to a China News Service report.
“The most moving thing was that she was so sincere and approachable. I’m very grateful for her patient guidance,” said Liv Redpath, the performing Juilliard student.
Redpath said she had asked a fellow Chinese student for help to practise her Chinese pronunciation and that she had listened repeatedly to Peng’s own recording of the song for weeks before the visit.
WATCH: China's first lady gives singing tips to Juilliard student
Peng, who was one of the first people on the mainland to obtain a master’s degree in ethnic music at the China Conservatory of Music, also viewed original manuscripts by Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Mozart.
Peng highlighted the importance of cultural exchange between the two countries at the school, and said students should learn from each other.
During her visit, Juilliard’s president Joseph Polisi announced plans for The Tianjin Juilliard School which is scheduled to open in 2018 in the northeastern Chinese port city.
It will be the school’s first campus outside of New York and will offer a US-accredited master’s degree in music, along with other instrumental lessons and performing arts programmes, according to a statement on their website.
The school said they also recently got a green light from China’s Ministry of Education to partner with the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, the Tianjin Binhai New Area CBD Administrative Commission and the Tianjin Innovative Finance Investment Company to go ahead with the plans.