Rees accuses these Chinese concerts of not being authentic because they do not follow the ancient tradition from which they were derived. The musicians are playing simplified versions of ritualistic songs from the Han Chinese that are very secularized to fit a tourist audience. The music is not as intricate, and the purpose of the music is entertainment instead of ritual value. She talks about the cultural revolution, where music was stifled for a period of ten years in China, causing tradition to slightly falter. If this music was not played for ten years and then it was picked up again, how can it truly be authentic? The music serves its purpose to impress tourists, but does not give an accurate representation of Chinese tradition.
The Chinese ensemble that we observed in class was probably considered "fake" because of the virtuosic performance of these musicians. They all seemed extremely skilled in their instruments and therefore put their own spin on playing style. The setting in which the orchestra was filmed was a white room, making it seem fake and uninteresting. They are also trained musicians who went to music school, so they have probably been influenced by new techniques in instrumentation that have been developed over the years, making their performance seem extravagant and inauthentic.
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The article was more about how an older form of Han Chinese ritual music called dongjing became "Ancient" Naxi (minority group music) because of marketing to tourists. She writes how Western scholars accused the modern Chinese orchestra of not being "authentic" enough because they played in a Western style, but they argued that they are playing traditional Chinese music (which they were). The question is, who is to say who is or is not authentic?
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