Virtuosos from Class of '78 know the score
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The works of world-acclaimed Chinese composers will dominate the programming in the second week of the China Festival at Carnegie Hall in New York.
The composers are best known as the Class of '78 - thus the theme title for the week starting October 26. Entering the Central Conservatory of Music in 1978, they became the first generation of budding Chinese composers to systematically study and listen to Western music after 10 years of the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976).
Over the past 30 years, this class of composers has contributed greatly to traditional and contemporary music, theater and dance across the globe.
The programs will feature the music of seven composers: Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Guo Wenjing, Chen Yi, Liu Sola, Ye Xiaogang and Zhou Long.
The Juilliard Orchestra will perform an all-Tan program in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall on October 26. The repertoire will include the world premiere of his "Violin Concerto The Love," performed by violinist Cho-Liang Lin and conducted by Tan.
"The Love," commissioned by The Juilliard School, continues Tan's exploration into new sounds by combining Chinese and Western elements, Tan told China Daily last week in a telephone interview from Amsterdam.
The concerto has three parts. "The first is about youth love, in which I would even use some hip-hop," Tan explained.
The second is middle-aged love, which is romantic, yet somehow sad.
He described the last part as a "sophisticated love," rather than seniors' love, which is dramatic and reminiscent, Tan said.
"Carnegie Hall somehow became my musical home after I left China and arrived in the US," he said.
The score of his concerto map is hung at the Carnegie Hall along with those of other great composers.
"I feel excited to join the China Festival, performing my music, participating in a discussion session and sharing Chinese music and culture to US people," he said.
On October 28 in the Stern Auditorium, Michael Tilson Thomas will conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in the premiere of Chen Qigang's new piano concerto, Er Huang, written for and performed by the pianist Lang Lang.
"I got inspiration for the piece from my childhood memories of Peking Opera," Chen told China Daily. The name actually comes from the popular Peking Opera tune called Erhuang Yuanban.
After graduated from the class of 1978, Chen studied in Paris and became the last student of the great French composer Olivier Messiaen. Last summer, he captured the world's imagination as the music director the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Three of Guo's works will be performed in the Festival: "Parade For Six Peking Opera Gongs," "Three Melodies of West Yunnan" and the Concertino for Cello and Chamber Orchestra.
"Three Melodies of West Yunnan" is inspired by the folk music and customs of the Va and Jino ethnic groups in Southwest China's Yunnan province." The Parade For Six Peking Opera Gongs" features three percussionists on six gongs.
"The Gongs" piece was commissioned by the Hague Percussion Group a few years ago and has been performed in many festivals throughout the world.
"I hope the audience will enjoy both the sound of the traditional Chinese gongs as well as the form the percussionists play, as they move, or say, dance in between the six gongs," Guo said.
Now a composition professor at the Central Conservatory of Music, Guo is the only one in his famous class who has remained in China throughout his career despite fame abroad.
Many European festivals like to commission him, and his opera "Night Banquet "was performed at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York in 2002.
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