There has been a wave of leadership upheavals throughout the Atlanta classical scene over the last few years. First, there was the intense, season-long concert evaluation process that brought Nathalie Stutzmann to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, followed by a similar process that put Paul Bhasin at the head of the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra. Even the Georgian Chamber Players had some internal restructuring following the death of founder Christopher Rex.
That changing of the guard continues to cascade through various classical organizations, and, over the last year, the Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra has addressed the cavernous absence left by the death of its founder, J. Wayne Baughman. The search has ended with Henry Cheng, the highly acclaimed former chief conductor and artistic director of the Klangkraft Orchester in Duisburg, Germany. He returns to the States this year to accept the JCSO position along with the role of interim professor of orchestral conducting at Georgia State University.
Such continent-hopping is a familiar experience for the man born Hao An Cheng, who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan with his parents as a child. For Cheng, the culture shock was fierce and the language barrier a towering hurdle. His first encounter with an American school teacher proved overwhelming.
“On the first day of school, I cried because she was asking me something, and I didn’t understand the language or the culture.” The teacher, Mrs. Green, had been asking for his name. It was then that Hao An became “Henry,” a name the teacher thought sounded nice. It was a tough first day, but Mrs. Green would go on to become a lifelong friend. Her mentorship, coupled with other memories of early acceptance by classmates, helped the young Cheng learn to navigate a seemingly alien world.
Those formative experiences have guided Cheng’s cross-cultural musical mission. “At the forefront of my mind today is exactly that,” he explains. “How do we connect to community? And what is my role in that?”
To that end, his first concert with the JCSO was an evening of symphonic K-Pop, where orchestral arrangements of modern South Korean pop standards merged with classical mainstays. It was an evening that meshed nicely with the JCSO’s penchant for blending the classical and the contemporary.
“I had the opportunity to feature some of my arrangements at the International BTS Academics Conference in Seoul,” he explains. The annual conference brings together academics from a wide range of disciplines with a shared interest in the music, culture and sociological phenomenon that is BTS, one of the world’s top K-pop acts. It opened my mind to a bigger world.”
For Cheng, like other academics who have become intrigued by the group’s extraordinary stardom and worldwide fan base in the hundreds of millions, unpacking the popularity of BTS is central to evangelizing music as an art form in the modern world. “They look good, they dance good, they sing good, but there are so many groups like that,” he observes.
Understanding BTS came with a long period of analyzing the group’s discography during the downtime afforded by the Covid-19 lockdown. As Cheng charted their musical evolution, he noted a philosophical depth outside the thematic range of most boy bands: Song topics included political freedom, sexual abuse, gun violence and other hot-button issues. At the core of the group was an earnest plea for unity and community.
Cheng came away from the conference with a new creative vision sparked by examining the K-pop sensations. “They have a song called ‘Dynamite’” he says as an example. “It was talking about finding light in the darkest of times.” Cheng saw a symbiosis between that and the thunderous grandeur of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
“There’s this parallel in the depth of all of our human struggles,” he explains, noting that the despair and righteous fury Beethoven felt at going deaf was a singular expression of the worldwide pain the BTS embraces thematically.
Such uncanny connections formed the foundation of his October 5, 2024, “Classical K-Pop” concert with the JCSO. The event, which was held at the Mark Burkhalter Amphitheater in Newtown Park, attracted an overflowing crowd. The show was such a hit with audiences of all ages that Chattahoochee High School contacted Cheng about performing some of his arrangements. Though the school offered to pay him for the performance rights, he insisted on giving permission free of charge.
The K-pop performance, along with his “Heroes Among Us: A Musical Tribute” set on January 25, served as Cheng’s audition. That latter concert was a testament to heroism as it exists among us: the everyday heroic people whose actions, however small, impact our lives exponentially. It’s a sentiment that has followed Cheng throughout his life, from Mrs. Green onward.
The weight of everyday heroism was on Cheng’s mind when he first encountered the JCSO and their warm, bittersweet memories of J. Wayne Baughman at the memorial concert. “It really moved me,” he recalls. “You could tell at that concert that he built something: He built a family. And [the concert] was such a powerful reflection of his vision for the orchestra. I left feeling like this was an organization that I would really love to be involved with.”
Cheng’s voice radiates a level of commitment and enthusiasm that’s sure to make Mrs. Green proud.
Written by Jordan Owen