Besides Jeong, Kim Min-joo, a cellist from South Korea, and three Chinese students, French horn players Xu Ruifeng, Wang Haifeng and double bass player Sun Zimo, all graduates of the Tianjin school, joined the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra as new members. On Dec 31, when the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra held its annual New Year concert at Shenzhen Concert Hall, Xu and Wang performed with the orchestra for the first time.

Jeong was the first student of the Tianjin school who was recruited by a Chinese symphony orchestra. She received her letter of admission in February and finished her study at the Tianjin school before starting work with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra.

She adds that she was so proud and immediately called her teachers and friends. "It's like a dream and I felt rewarded and happy about my growth. I'm very thankful. I feel that I have been able to develop a lot through this audition," she says.

The violist also says that moving to China has been one of the coolest adventures in her life. Everything is totally new to her. She has had many opportunities to explore the different regions of the country. "One thing I learned is that it is big, like really big, and there is no single culture that defines the entire country," says Jeong.

"During the 1980s and 1990s, many music majors from South Korea chose to study in the United States and Europe. Many of them decided to return to South Korea and became new blood for local symphony orchestras," says He Wei, CEO and artistic director of the Tianjin Juilliard School.

"Now, the rise of classical music in China is apparent to see and many international students consider China as a great opportunity to launch their careers. We hope that more students from around the world will be able to work and stay in China."

The Tianjin school, located alongside the city's Haihe River, is the first overseas campus of the New York-based Juilliard School. The Tianjin school's first graduate studies program was launched in the fall of 2020 amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, 33 students graduated from the Tianjin school's graduate studies program and one-third of them joined in Chinese symphony orchestras, including many international students, according to He.

Oboist Bethany Lawrence, originally from Houston in the US, is one of the graduates from the Tianjin school. She says that studying in China is her very first experience living outside Texas. After graduation, she joined Shanghai Opera House Orchestra as its second principal oboist.