Lawrence Ku [Photo provided to China Daily]

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic decimated the live performance scene in the first half of the year, and it's only starting to be revived in the last few months. This downtime allowed him to focus his energies on his new educational project, GXS Music (Gong Xian She), which offers music lovers a platform to learn to play guitar online.

Ku spent the pandemic writing materials for the first few seasons of the GXS guitar program, and the first season is currently online, with the second season coming online later this month. He has also been sharing his music learning experience and displaying musical techniques on social media platforms. He is no stranger to music education. In his early years in Beijing, Ku taught at the Beijing Midi Music School and at the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy. In 2006, he co-founded and became the principal of the JZ School in Shanghai, dedicated to contemporary music education.

"China's jazz scene has developed so much now that access to the internet is so widespread as well as access to music programs abroad. Young musicians in China are getting very good very fast and there's more and more fantastic original music coming out of China, Beijing and Shanghai in particular. The sky is the limit," Ku says.