10-Day Youth Orchestra Concert Tour: Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai

Afternoon — Arrival in Beijing
Welcome to Beijing, the capital of China! To make your arrival as smooth as possible, your private guide greets you in the arrivals hall and escorts you to your hotel by private vehicle. Your guide also handles your luggage and assists with the hotel check-in process.

Evening — At Your Leisure
Lunch or dinner will be arranged according to the voucher provided for you; otherwise, you can find some local restaurants nearby or dine at the hotel. The rest of the day is yours to rest and recover from your journey.

Morning — the rehearsal hall
A rehearsal room with a piano, a mirrored wall and a set of percussion instruments is the base for the day. The morning runs in sections: the melodic instruments work intonation against the piano, the percussion works the counting, and the group spends a full hour on the two things that make an amateur ensemble audible rather than merely accurate - breathing together at the start of a phrase and holding the tempo steady through the difficult bar. The conductor for the programme is a local teacher arranged through our music partner; the specific school and teacher are confirmed before the group departs.

Late morning — the programme takes shape
By late morning the group is working on the full programme rather than fragments: one Chinese piece, one Western piece, and something short in which local students can join the melody. Tempos are fixed, dynamics are marked into the parts, and every participant is given a named cue to enter on. This is the unglamorous part of ensemble playing and it is where a programme is actually won.

Lunch
Lunch near the rehearsal hall, taken with the teachers so that questions about technique and repertoire continue at the table.

Afternoon — joint rehearsal with students
In the afternoon you travel to a music school campus, arranged through our local education partner, and rehearse together with its students. The exchange works best when both sides play: the local students open with a short piece of their own, the group answers, and then everyone plays the shared numbers together with doubled parts. Language is not much of a problem in a rehearsal - tuning is tuning and counting is counting, and the participants who can say eight bars of introductions in Chinese do better than the ones who cannot. Instruments and parts for the joint section are provided by the partner school; participants bring their own reeds, sticks or mouthpieces if they have them.

Evening — run-through and dinner
Back at the rehearsal hall, a full run-through of the programme without stopping, followed by notes and dinner. The evening is deliberately not a performance - the first audience comes tomorrow, and the group should meet the programme once more before it does.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
In Beijing.

Morning — Temple of Heaven
Begin your day at the Temple of Heaven, an esteemed complex of religious structures where emperors once prayed for good harvests, epitomizing the connection between Earth and Heaven. Built in the Ming Dynasty and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is also a beloved public park where you can watch local residents practicing their distinctive morning exercises.

Lunch — A Well-Known Local Eatery
For lunch, enjoy a meal at a well-known local eatery featuring authentic regional cuisine. Your guide assists you in selecting dishes that suit your taste.

Afternoon — Tian'anmen Square & the Forbidden City
Stroll through Tian'anmen Square, one of the world's largest public squares, then delve into the enigmatic Forbidden City, the world's largest imperial palace. Home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, it contains hundreds of halls and courtyards; venturing off the main axis uncovers fascinating tales of notable figures often overlooked by conventional tours.

Evening — At Your Leisure
The evening is yours to enjoy at your leisure in Beijing.

Morning — Summer Palace
Explore the Summer Palace, a Qing Dynasty masterpiece and UNESCO World Heritage Site set around Kunming Lake. Highlights include the Marble Boat, Longevity Hill, and the Long Corridor, whose beams are covered with thousands of painted scenes. A dragon-boat ride across the lake offers a royal perspective on the gardens.

Lunch — Local Restaurant
Pause for lunch before your afternoon train.

Afternoon — High-Speed Train to Xi'an
Board a high-speed train to Xi'an, a journey of roughly 4.5 to 6 hours that carries you past rural landscapes and ancient villages.

Evening — Arrival in Xi'an
On arrival, transfer to your hotel and check in.

Accommodation
Hotel options include Mercure Xi'an, a comfortable hotel with easy access to the sights; Grand Mercure Xi'an, a hotel in traditional Chinese style near the Shaanxi Provincial Government; Hyatt Xi'an, a luxury hotel near South Lake in the city's Cultural Development Zone; and Legend, a luxury hotel in the walled area of Xi'an.

Morning — sectionals
The rehearsal hall is a plain room with a piano, a set of music stands and enough space for a group of thirty. The morning runs in sections - strings, winds, percussion - with local tutors sitting in and working on the two problems a touring youth ensemble always has at the start of a day: intonation after a change of hall, and the tendency of every section to play a fraction behind the beat. Xi'an has a long percussion tradition of its own: the drum music ensembles recorded here, inscribed by UNESCO in 2009, descend from Tang-dynasty court and temple bands and are built entirely from drums, gongs, sheng and dizi, which makes an interesting contrast when the group plays anything with a strong rhythmic figure.

Late morning — the programme
The second session puts the programme in order. Three items are planned: one Western work the group knows, one Chinese piece arranged for the available instruments, and one short piece for the joint performance with local students. Tempo decisions are made and written into every part, entry cues are marked, and the group runs the transitions rather than the whole pieces - which is the least enjoyable and most useful way to rehearse.

Lunch
Lunch near the hall, with the tutors; participants are encouraged to sit with someone from a different section and to talk about anything other than the music.

Afternoon — joint rehearsal
In the afternoon a local youth ensemble joins for the shared item, arranged through our music partner with the specific ensemble confirmed before departure. The piece is chosen so that both groups have real material: the local students take the melody in the first statement, the visiting group answers, and the two play together from the second section onwards. Rehearsing with a group that has learned the same piece by a different route is the fastest way to hear how much of an interpretation is the music and how much is habit.

Evening — the concert
The concert is held in a mid-size hall, arranged with our local performance partner. The programme runs about an hour, with the joint item before the interval so that the visiting group's own work closes the evening. Somewhere in the middle, a small group from the ensemble plays a chamber piece, which gives the audience - mostly local families, students and both ensembles' supporters - something close enough to see and hear. Afterwards there is a short reception and the usual photographs.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
In Xi'an.

Morning — Fly to Xi'an & Shaanxi History Museum
Fly to Xi'an, the ancient capital that served as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road for over 2,000 years. On arrival, visit the Shaanxi History Museum to understand how the city connected China with the world, facilitating the trade of silk, spices, ideas, and technologies. The exhibits reveal Xi'an's role as a cosmopolitan center where East met West — parallels that resonate today.

Afternoon — Muslim Quarter
Explore the Muslim Quarter, a vibrant neighborhood that has preserved traditions dating back to the Tang Dynasty, when Xi'an welcomed merchants from across Asia and the Middle East. Navigate narrow alleys filled with aromatic food stalls, craftspeople, and historic mosques, experiencing the multicultural heritage that made Xi'an one of the world's most sophisticated cities during its golden age.

Evening — Ancient City Wall Light Show
Watch the spectacular Ancient City Wall Light Show from a rooftop restaurant, where projections bring the city's long history to life on the fortifications that still encircle the old city. As you enjoy local specialties such as biangbiang noodles and roujiamo, consider how Xi'an's past as a trading hub informs its present role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Accommodation
• 4-Star Hotels: Crowne Plaza Xi'an, DoubleTree by Hilton Xi'an, Mercure Xi'an Downtown. • 5-Star Hotels: The Ritz-Carlton Xi'an, InterContinental Xi'an, Sofitel Legend Xi'an.

Meals
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are included today.

Morning — The Ancient City Wall
The ancient city wall in Xi'an is one of the few fortresses of its kind to survive in China, dating to the Ming Dynasty and encircling the old city. Walking along the top or riding a bicycle on it is a unique way to take in the city from above.

Afternoon — Departure to Shanghai
Your guide assists with checkout and transfer to the airport or railway station for your onward journey to the next destination.

Morning — Yuyuan Garden
Visit Yuyuan Garden, a classical Chinese garden built in the Ming Dynasty (completed in 1577) in Shanghai's old town. Its pavilions, rockeries, ponds, and carved halls show the art of southern garden design, beside the lively Yuyuan Bazaar.

Midday — Shanghai Museum
Explore the Shanghai Museum, home to over one million artifacts including bronzes, ceramics, calligraphy, and paintings that trace China's 5,000-year history. Its rounded building on People's Square is itself a city landmark.

Evening — The Bund
Stroll The Bund, Shanghai's iconic waterfront along the Huangpu River, where colonial-era buildings from the early 1900s face the futuristic skyline of Pudong. An optional acrobatics show can be arranged.

Meals
Lunch and dinner are included, featuring local Shanghainese cuisine.

Accommodation
Your hotel in Shanghai.

Morning — rehearsal with the tutors
The morning is a working rehearsal in a studio with a piano, a full set of Chinese instruments and the two local tutors who have been coaching the group. The programme is finalised: one piece written for Chinese instruments, one Western work arranged for the group, and one short item in which the local musicians join. China's first higher music school was founded in Shanghai in 1927, and the city has had a continuous professional training tradition since then, which means the standard of the tutors arranged for visiting ensembles here is high and the corrections are direct. Expect intonation work, a metronome, and a long time on one transition.

Late morning — balance and staging
The second session moves from notes to performance. Where does each player stand so that the melody is heard above the accompaniment? How much can the percussion give without covering the plucked strings? What is the signal for the last note? The group also agrees the spoken introduction that will be given before each item, in English and in a short Chinese version, and who will deliver it - a task that is offered to participants rather than assigned to the leader.

Lunch
An early lunch, then the instruments are moved to the hall; the group travels together because the cases go in the same vehicle.

Afternoon — stage call
The afternoon is a technical rehearsal in a mid-size hall, arranged through our local performance partner with the venue confirmed before departure. This is the session that decides how the evening feels: sightlines are checked, the lighting plan is agreed, the piano is tuned, the microphones for the quieter instruments are placed and the group plays the whole programme once in the space, sitting where they will sit. Most ensembles discover at this point that the hall is drier or wetter than the studio and that the tempo they rehearsed is a little too fast on a stage.

Evening — the performance
The concert is played to an audience of local residents, students and the partner musicians. Two items are performed with the local players, and the closing number is the one everyone rehearsed that morning. The group gives one short encore, chosen before the performance so that nobody has to decide anything on stage. Afterwards there is a short reception with the audience and the tutors, which for most participants is the part of the day they talk about afterwards.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
In Shanghai.

Morning — Departure Transfer
Your guide and driver will pick you up from your hotel and transfer you to Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) for your departure flight home, bringing your journey to a close.