The teenage sweethearts who went their separate ways, were brought back together by music, married, and play as part of an exciting young trio
- She was 13 when she left China for the UK, he was seven when Yehudi Menuhin heard him play in Russia and invited him to London to study the violin
- Wu Qian and Alexander Sitkovetsky played together in school, and do so now with fellow thirty-something German cellist Isang Enders, a protégé of Lynn Harrell
Wu Qian was 13 when she left China for the UK in 1997. It was the first time she had been away from home, but it was just another step on a journey that had begun years earlier.
Her musical ability had been spotted when she was seven, just a year after she started playing the piano. By the age of nine, she was studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Less than four years later Wu was chosen to play to a delegation from the UK-based Yehudi Menuhin School. They were impressed, and soon afterwards she was offered a full scholarship.
“The first three months were hard,” recalls Wu, now 35. “The food, getting to know the way of life abroad … it was scary … they were different times then; there was only one other student from China.”
By the end of the first term, though, her English had improved, she felt more comfortable. and she also had started playing duets with a young Russian violinist just a few months older than her. His name was Alexander Sitkovetsky – Sasha for short – and he was from one of the most famous musical families in the Soviet Union.
The food, getting to know the way of life abroad … it was scary … they were different times then; there was only one other student from China
It wasn’t quite love at first sight, they said, ahead of two performances in Hong Kong next week by the Sitkovetsky Trio, which comprises the two of them and 31-year-old cellist Isang Enders. But they did like each other, and soon afterwards they started dating.
