Classical music reality TV has been tried in the Western world already. Sometimes with great success.
The BBC's The Choir, for instance, and some years ago Classical Star are considered successes. And American conductors from Toscanini to Leonard Bernstein to Michael Tilson Thomas have known how to use that box in the living room for classical music's best interests.
But now China is getting in on the act, and we're bound to hear more.
Because the major players are CAEG--a state-owned entertainment group (in China, almost every serious big business needs to have, it seems, some formal involvement with the state) and the giant management company IMG Artists (which, despite some recent troubles, is still of a size to have a significant impact). The two bodies have joined in a joint venture called Sino America Global Entertainment (SAGE) and, reports Forbes magazine, they plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to cross-fertilize the Eastern and Western classical music worlds.
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