Project Description

          In Han Jun’s collection, if there is anything that outnumbers photo albums, it must be records. His love for music began with his obsession with “Jean-Christophe” during his adolescence. At that time, he hadn’t even listened to Beethoven yet. All he could remember was the sense of music permeating every line of the book. The narrative structure, from birth to youth, to prime of life, and to old age, is just like a symphony.
       In his early years, Han Jun didn’t live in Wangjing but in Dengshikou, which was very close to the China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation Foreign Language Bookstore. It had already become a habitual pastime for him to visit the bookstore from time to time in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, a large part of the traditional bookstores’ business was selling cassette tapes. Not far from the foreign language bookstore, there was also an educational bookstore. Back then, cassette tapes were all called “internal materials”, costing five or six yuan per box. But in those days, five or six yuan was no small amount. In Han Jun’s memory, he had bought Karajan’s recordings of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Symphony No. 5, and Symphony No. 9. He also started listening to Brahms and Tchaikovsky from cassette tapes.

         Looking back, his experience with records dates back to the 1990s. The most expensive records among the first batch that Han Jun bought were just over 90 yuan each, and the cheaper ones were around fifty or sixty yuan. His investment in records is around three to four hundred thousand yuan, not including audio equipment. After transitioning from cassette tapes to records, he now plays Blu-ray discs for even higher audio quality.
        “Actually, there were many musicians that I didn’t know originally. It was through music festivals that I got to know them and started listening to their music, and then went on to hunt for their records, like Paulding. Before attending music festivals, when collecting CDs, I always followed the Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music, picking the ones with three stars and a flower.”
         The artists as perceived by the photographer can be best understood in their playful hearts when they are waving their bows or raising and lowering their batons. After being fully immersed in music and becoming highly proficient, they add even more individuality to their works. “The most interesting one was the violinist Nigel Kennedy. He was witty and fond of drinking. During the 17th Music Festival, when Charles Dutoit and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra jointly presented Richard Strauss’s one-act opera ‘Elektra’, the rehearsals were especially interesting. Maestro Dutoit always made funny faces, completely without the airs of a maestro. And then there was ‘the Tsar’ Valery Gergiev. As early as the 1st Beijing International Music Festival in 1998, he led what was then called the Kirov Symphony Orchestra of Russia to perform in Beijing. At that time, he looked quite humble.” Han Jun recalled with great interest.
  
         In 2001, at the 4th Beijing International Music Festival, violinist Maxim Vengerov came to the Beijing International Music Festival for the first time. Subsequently, in 2004, he cooperated with the Verbier Festival Orchestra at the closing ceremony. Eight years later, in 2012, he came to the festival again for the opening ceremony of the 15th edition. Through the lens of the photographer, one could see the growth of the artist. Han Jun recalled, “The most striking impression was that when Vengerov came for the first time, he mostly chose virtuosic short pieces. When he came for the second time, he began to play large-scale works. Vengerov has come at least three times, appearing more and more composed each time.”