China Now Music Pageant kicks off new season in New York Metropolis with “Tales from Beijing”-Xinhua

Artists carry out on the live performance “Tales from Beijing” of China Now Music Pageant on the Lincoln Middle in New York, america, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Pageant, a number one drive in introducing music from China to america, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday on the Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis, with fusion music works that “belong to each East and West.” (Picture by Winston Zhou/Xinhua)

by Xinhua author Yang Shilong

NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) — China Now Music Pageant, a number one drive in introducing music from China to america, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday on the Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis, with fusion music works that “belong to each East and West.”

The annual occasion, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard Faculty Conservatory of Music and China’s Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is devoted to selling the understanding and appreciation of music from up to date China via an annual collection of concert events and educational actions.

“We search to disclose the variations in tradition and custom which have traditionally divided East from West — solely to interrupt them down and, via our inventive expertise, create one thing new that belongs to each the East and West,” stated the competition’s inventive director Jindong Cai, who can be the USCMI director.

Music exchanges play an vital function in selling mutual understanding between america and China on the present time when bilateral relations are tough, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard Faculty, informed Xinhua at a reception after the live performance on Sunday.

Within the fall of 2018, the Bard Faculty began to supply an undergraduate efficiency diploma program in chosen Chinese language devices together with erhu, guzheng and pipa.

Studio instruction in these conventional Chinese language devices is supplied by world-renowned CCOM grasp musicians, with using state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person classes each on the Bard campus and in Beijing.

“It is vital to maintain it going and music exchanges can carry us nearer,” stated Botstein, a longtime conductor and music historian, including that he appears to be like ahead to a efficiency tour in China in June subsequent yr.

Sunday’s live performance, “Tales from Beijing,” on the Rose Theater, Jazz on the Lincoln Middle, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years starting in 1918 and have become a number one determine in pioneering fashionable Chinese language music.

Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of outdated Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing’s historical alleyways — morning temple bells, the calls of avenue distributors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums — earlier than lastly transporting the viewers again to the tranquility of the traditional metropolis.

Following have been 4 picks from the opera Rickshaw Boy, particularly chosen and tailored by Chinese language composer Guo Wenjing for the live performance efficiency to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu.

The live performance’s second half was dedicated to Chinese language composer Ye Xiaogang’s Symphony No. 2, The Nice Wall. This massive-scale work that includes piano, voice, Chinese language devices and symphony orchestra is impressed by the Nice Wall, an impressive bodily and religious image of the Chinese language nation.

The symphony is split into 9 actions, drawing on people music of the numerous ethnic teams who stay alongside the Nice Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China.

The second live performance program, “Painted Pores and skin,” will happen on Oct. 13 on the Hudson Corridor, the historic opera home in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz on the Lincoln Middle. It options the U.S. premiere of “Painted Pores and skin,” a chamber opera based mostly on a ghost story by the early 18th century writer Pu Songling, which was initially printed in Unusual Tales from a Chinese language Studio.

The final live performance program, “Journey to the East,” will happen on Oct. 22 within the Lincoln Middle’s Alice Tully Corridor. ■

Jindong Cai (C), director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, conducts on the live performance “Tales from Beijing” of China Now Music Pageant on the Lincoln Middle in New York, america, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Pageant, a number one drive in introducing music from China to america, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday on the Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis, with fusion music works that “belong to each East and West.” (Picture by Winston Zhou/Xinhua)

Artists carry out on the live performance “Tales from Beijing” of China Now Music Pageant on the Lincoln Middle in New York, america, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Pageant, a number one drive in introducing music from China to america, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday on the Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis, with fusion music works that “belong to each East and West.” (Picture by Winston Zhou/Xinhua)

Artists carry out on the live performance “Tales from Beijing” of China Now Music Pageant on the Lincoln Middle in New York, america, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Pageant, a number one drive in introducing music from China to america, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday on the Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis, with fusion music works that “belong to each East and West.” (Picture by Winston Zhou/Xinhua)