Chinese Company’s Purchase of Top American Music College Called Off

Emilie Fleury (R), head of the choir of children and the “Jeune Ensemble” of the Maitrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, conducts the choir in Saint-Sulpice Church in Paris, on April 18, 2019, after Notre-Dame Cathedral was devastated by a fire. JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP/Getty Images

A proposed deal for the partially state-owned Chinese company Kaiwen Education to buy the prestigious U.S. music school Westminster Choir College (WCC) won’t go forward, according to statements published by Kaiwen and WCC’s owner, Rider University, on July 1.

WCC has regular performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, and many of its alumni are renowned musicians, such as American composer Warren Martin, American mezzo-soprano opera singer Jennifer Larmore, and Canadian conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin.