Into the ring

One of the biggest challenges for Sun to conduct Das Rheingold was that he had to understand Wagner's musical innovation regarding how the music was composed.

"Wagner did produce an immense amount of theoretical writing so his music and his texts are closely related. When I studied his Das Rheingold, I studied the text and the language Wagner used, which is different from the German used today," says Sun.

The young conductor notes that after days of rehearsals, he was confident about the concert. Rightly so, the reviews were good.

"It was the first time that Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra performed Das Rheingold, and it was a great challenge not only for Sun Yifan but also for the orchestra. There was no intermission and the feedback of the audience was beyond our expectations," says Chen Qing, president of Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra.

Sun recalls that, "Although the work is about two and a half hours, it flies by. Physically, I was OK. After the concert, Yu Long told me that he is very happy about my performance. I was relieved."

It was not the first time that Sun stepped in for Yu. On July 30 last year in Shanghai, he conducted the world premiere of the symphonic poem, A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, written by Chinese composer Zhao Lin. The symphonic poem, initiated by Yu and commissioned by 23 Chinese symphony orchestras, was inspired by A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, the classic artwork by Wang Ximeng, who completed the masterpiece during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Sun also played the piano in the symphonic poem.