Renowned US conductor Carl St. Clair and Israeli-American violinist Pinchas Zukerman brought the Pacific Symphony to China for the first time ever last week.

Bringing the works of Ravel, Mozart and Leonard Bernstein, they began their China tour in Shanghai on May 9, before heading to Hefei, Wuxi and Chongqing. Their last stop was Beijing, where they performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts on the nights of May 14 and 15.

The Israeli-American violin master also performed the classic theme song from  Steven Spielberg's 1993 movie Schindler's List as an encore on May 15, which drew loud applause from the audience.

As the orchestra began wrapping up the concert with My Homeland - the patriotic theme song from the 1956 Chinese film Shang Gan Ling - as their third and last encore, many members of the audience began to cheer and sing along with the well-known melody.

Though this marks Pacific Symphony's China debut, for Zukerman and St. Clair it is already their sixth or seventh visit to the country.

Having cooperated with Chinese veterans from the industry numerous times, the two musicians sat down with the Global Times to share their thoughts on China's rapidly growing classical music market.

Booming industry

Both of them took special note of the large number of young people in the audiences that came to the concerts during the tour.

"We don't see many young people in audiences in America, but you can see so many young kids sitting right in the front rows and they're just like so eager and so attentive and you could see they're just soaking everything in," St. Clair said.

"It's amazing to see so many kids when we played the other night," Zukerman told the Global Times.

"I think it's because there's a difference in cultural understanding."

The fever for having young children learn Western musical instruments, especially the violin and piano, first broke out in China in the 1990s. Continuing to grow over the years, it has helped push market demand for classical music concerts and salons.

According to an article on music industry-focused platform Music Business China, the number of classical orchestra performances reached a peak in Beijing and Shanghai in 2014 equaling world classical music centers including London, Berlin and New York. The number of foreign orchestras coming to perform in China has also been increasing.

"I will be back in China in a year or a year and a half again with a different orchestra probably," said Zukerman.