Before I left for Beijing, Yang Yong, another Boston-area Chinese composer, had told me about the Hua Cai Music Bookstore and the Xin Hua Music Bookstore. What used to be the Xin Hua Bookstore in Wangfujing had been demolished and a construction site stood in its place. But I found the Hua Cai Music Bookstore easily in photogenic Liulichang. Here was where I found Wei Tingge's hardcover anthologies of Chinese piano music and the Encyclopedia of Contemporary and Modern Chinese Musicians. I bought approximately thirty pounds of books that day! The address is: The People's Music Publishing House - Hua Cai Culture Service Company, 36 Liulichang West Street, Xuanwu District, Beijing; and their telephone numbers as: 6303-4781, 6303-4057.

While in Beijing, I attended several performances at the Beijing Concert Hall. My first concert there was a gala event for the 55th anniversary celebration of Mao Zedong's poetry and prose. These were grandiose arrangements and melodramatic performances of Mao's writings which are reputedly quite well done. I received complimentary tickets to another similar event from Huang Yamong who was accompanying a singer. Apparently this art form of combining recitation and vocal singing is a popular way to express poetry here: first the text is recited, then the singer begins, both are given equal importance. Other performances I attended at the Beijing Concert Hall were by a visiting chamber music group from Geneva who performed an avant garde Chinese piece; a student concert featuring some Chinese piano pieces; and, an evening at the Laoshe Tea House nearby.

While at the Beijing Concert Hall, I had much time to browse in their bookstore. The store sells music scores (disorganized and chucked in a corner shelf behind the cashier) compact disks and mainly literary books. I found some books here which were already sold out at other locations, as well as a Chinese music dictionary. The address is: Wan Sheng No. 1 Branch Store, 1 Beixinhuajie, Liuibukou (inside Beijing Concert Hall), Beijing 100031; telephone number: 6605-0157. The main store (including the mailing department), Beijing Wan Sheng Book Garden is located at: 60 Chengfujie, Haiding, Beijing 100080; and their phone number is: 6261-2799; fax: 6262-1606.

Even though a few independent publishing companies are gaining some foothold on the market, practically all music scores I had seen were published by the People's Music Publishing House. I got their address from a visitor from the Music Teachers' Training College who was auditing Professor Liang's seminar. Located approximately 25 minutes' walk from the Gongzhufen subway stop, it was nestled deep inside a hardly noticeable hutong off Cuiwei Road.

I eventually located the illusive Xin Hua Bookstore. It had been temporarily moved to the fourth floor of the Foreign Language Bookstore in Wangfujing. Here I struck a mother lode of Chinese classical compact discs. The only recordings of the piano music I had acquired were by the established and more elderly faculty of the Conservatory. It was important to find these valuable recordings of the same pieces performed by masters on traditional Chinese instruments. The phone numbers of the Wangfujing Xin Hua Bookstore are: (third floor, recordings) 6525-1946, 6525-2592; (fourth floor, books) 6512-0678, 6525-3775.