On December 14, School of Music held the final exam (piano) in the rehearsal hall, and Prof. Fang YUAN hosted the exam.

In order to make students be resilient toward pressure, Prof. Zhenhong JIN and administrative staff were invited. Though students felt stressed in front of the audience, they successfully overcame the pressure and performed at the level they should be.

   Prof. YUAN introduces the exam to the audience 

Prof. YUAN selected a Bach piece and a piano sonata with different styles as per each student’s characteristics. A few days prior to the final exam, Mr. Junyi HUANG, the chief piano tuner of Steinway & Sons Shenzhen, was invited to give a lecture on piano tuning. He explained how to tune the piano and emphasized the importance of tuning in performance and practice. After one and a half hours of discussion, students had an in-depth understanding of the principle of sound of the piano.

During the exam, students first played Bach’s work and played the designated Sonata afterward. In the first part, they played with their own understanding and musical logic of the work to present the structure of Baroque Music. In the second part, they played the first movement of Haydn's Piano Sonata No. 59 in E-flat major, Mozart's Piano Sonata No.14 in C minor, K. 457, and Beethoven's Piano Sonata in F minor, No. 1, respectively. Though facing overwhelming pressure, they still impressed the audience with sound performance.

In closing the exam, Prof. JIN, on behalf of the dean, first acknowledges the hard work and progress the students have made in the first term and encouraged them to have more confidence in themselves. “Though you were not graduated from the schools affiliated to conservatories, you could still be as competent as those who were. Just like you, I graduated from a normal high school before attending the university, it does not matter that much. Students like us tend to be more logical, but lack intensive practice. So, what really matters is that you should activate your brain when learning music. Once you unleash your potential, you can be accomplished either.” He also advised the students to devote more time to practice, so as to overcome the bottlenecks and lay a solid foundation for a higher level of performance, and to listen to more musical works. By comparing different interpretations of the same musical work, students could deepen their own understanding of the musical works to further improve their own performance ability.