Chengdu

Chengdu is an important business hub in China. With its roughly 15 million inhabitants, it is Bonn’s largest partner city. The cities of Chengdu and Bonn have maintained friendly ties since the year 2,000. These have involved close cultural contacts and mutual visits. In 2009, the partnership treaty was signed.

Climate Issues and Sustainable Urban Development

Chengdu

In 2013, both cities signed a climate partnership agreement under the title ‘Bonn-Chengdu Partnership for Sustainable Low-Carbon Development’. Senior experts from the city administration, civil society, the business and scientific community now discuss mobility, sustainable urban development and energy efficiency and related issues during technical conferences and meetings.

Business and Science/Scholarships

The partnership is also actively promoted in the fields of science and business. In recent years, numerous business delegations have travelled from Bonn to Chengdu or from Chengdu to Bonn for information and exploratory talks. Among other things, the delegation trips served to promote the planned expansion of Deutsche Post/DHL's involvement in the field of logistics services in China or the establishment of cooperation in the field of e-mobility.

Since 2014, students from Bonn have the option of signing up for a scholarship program to study abroad in the City of Chengdu.

Cultural Exchange/School Twinning

Close contacts have been established in this field. Bonn’s Beethoven Orchestra has toured China, greatly inspiring the audience abroad. Furthermore, young musicians are invited to perform during the annual Youth Music Festival hosted in the City of Chengdu. Since 2016, the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Bonn has integrated a ‘Chengdu Special’ into its annual Stadtgarten concert series. The work is supported by the Bonn-based Society for China Studies (Bonner Gesellschaft für China-Studien e.V.).

Exchange between citizens, especially young people, is important for the active continuation of a partnership. Therefore, a school partnership between the Integrated Comprehensive School Bonn-Beuel (IGS) and the Shude High School has been in place for many years. Other schools in Bonn have expressed their interest to establish this form of school twinning.

Beethoven Seminar at Chengdu University

Project partnership between Bonn and Chengdu is continued online

From June 20-July 01, 2022, Chengdu University offered an online seminar on Bonn composer Ludwig van Beethoven to interested students. The course, entitled "Bonn and Chengdu: Beethoven as trademark" was held as part of the Summer School at Chengdu University and examined the question of Beethoven's role as a cultural "mediator figure" between Germany and China. Dr. Hannes Jedeck, a musicologist and sinologist himself, led the seminar from the German side.

Since the topic "Beethoven" apparently aroused more interest than expected, the seminar, initially limited to 15 participants, was eventually opened to 80 students from Chengdu University. The demand was simply too great. The Chinese coordinator of the program, Lianlian Gao, explained it as follows: "For us, Beethoven is an international icon. In China, almost every student knows his famous '9th Symphony' or the piano piece 'Für Elise'."

Numerous Bonn institutions and facilities supported the online seminar with their own contributions.

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To kick off the eight sessions, Stefan Wagner (head of the Department of International Affairs and Global Sustainability of the City of Bonn) spoke about Beethoven's significance for Bonn and the development of the partnership between Bonn and Chengdu - from the first "Memorandum of Understanding" in 2009 to the big China Festival in 2019 in downtown Bonn to mark the 10th anniversary.

But musicological subtleties were also discussed in the seminar. Prof. Dr. Christine Siegert (director of the Beethoven Archive) presented current findings in the field of Beethoven research and emphasized the importance of up-to-date critical editions of Beethoven's works. Malte Boecker (Director of the Beethoven House) showed the students the possibility of using the internet presence of the Beethoven House as a huge digital archive. A virtual tour through the museum, which included the famous painting of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler from 1820, was particularly well received.

In the last two sessions, the future of the Bonn composer was discussed even more thoroughly than before. Prof. Walter Werzowa reported on the "Beethoven X - The AI Project". This is because artificial intelligence was used to compose a fully-fledged work from sketches of Beethoven's 10th Symphony. Walter Werzowa himself was involved from the beginning to the finished work. The students had an animated discussion about whether an AI can be creative and what composing means today.

Creativity also played a central role in the contribution of Steven Walter, the young new artistic director of the Beethoven Festival. The performances of Beethoven's music, he said, are always new creations; new performances and interpretations keep them "contemporary." Steven Walter gave an overview of the many novel concert formats and ideas to which the 2022 Beethoven Fest is committed under the slogan "All People."

The fact that the seminar was a success is evidenced by the extensive positive feedback written by the seminar participants afterwards. A successful contribution to German-Chinese understanding and the Bonn Chengdu project partnership - with Beethoven as cultural ambassador!