Nirvanais a piano-hypermedia concert series. It was initiated by young Chinese pianist Yu Xiangjun who studied both in China and Germany. The program of Nirvanamainly focuses on contemporary piano repertoire, especially those with structural tension and sonic expressiveness. Nirvanatries to combine the aesthetics of piano and the vividness of new media art to promote contemporary music with various art forms and technology. The concert continues to present a mixture of various media including piano, electronic music, interactive lighting, graphic scores and responsive visuals. The medialized performance creates a visible and kinetic spatial effect, transforming the musical interpretation into an immersive music experience beyond hearing. The piano music of four Chinese and Western composers from different periods forms an interesting sense of dialogue with the visual interaction design by new media artist, Da Yan. It is not only a dialogue between different musical styles of China and the West, but also a dialogue of creative aesthetics across media and time. PROGRAM (subject to change)Makrokosmos (Volume I &Volume II, excerpts) / George CrumbVibration of the Heavens / Zhibo Xu Commissioned by RAW - CSIAFThree Etudes-tableaux No.3 / Qing ShaoChina Gates / John Adams
One day the tipsy Qian Daduan, a sorehead poor scholar, found a copper coin on his way back home. Badly in need of money, he hesitated a lot whether to take it or not. In the end, he made the firm resolution to resist the temptation of wealth and take pains to study.
In Retrospect takes kunqu opera, Chinese classical dance and contemporary dance as the main forms to express the revival of kunqu opera in peoples mind. Through the separation and integration of movement elements, the graceful style of kunqu opera and the free collision of contemporary dance are combined to tell the cultural collision between modern culture and traditional Chinese culture in different slow and fast rhythms and in different situations of static and dry.
Tale of Seeking the Mountain is adapted from Volume Strange, A Taoist From Lao Mountain. Wu was a male intellectual, who departed from Guangdong to seek the Mountain. He had been to Danxia Mountain, Heng Mountain in Hunan, finally he had made his way to Lao Mountain in Shandong, been apprenticed to his mater to learn sorcery. Taoist from Lao Mountain, his master, taught him the spell to be invisible. By the time Wu was home, his mother was long gone. A month in Wonder Land had brought great changes to the world. Wu begged his mater for a reunion with his mother. For exchange of his wish, Wus Life had been given to his mother. Wu saw his mother again but he could no longer stay by her side, for himself was old and aging.
The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) is a portable orchestra for the new millennium. With an emphasis on improvisation, it explores the meeting points between disciplines and cultures, and imagines new musical forms to reflect the energy and diversity of contemporary Australia. Now in its 25th year and led by prolific composer, trumpeter and sound artist, Peter Knight, the Australian Art Orchestra features some of Australias most celebrated jazz musicians. It tours both locally and internationally and has won numerous awards for its work including three Australian Jazz Bell awards, the 2014 AMC/APRA Art Music Award ‘Excellence by an Organisation, the 2013 AMC/APRA Art Music Award ‘Performance of the Year and many others. In Water Pushes Sand, composer Erik Griswold and the Australian Art Orchestra team up with all-star musicians and performers of Sichuan to create a wild intercultural celebration. The ten-piece big band fuses Sichuan melodies and rhythms with modern jazz improvisation, and evoke the vibrant landscape of the Chengdu Provence. Known for its brash and friendly people, spicy food, laid back tea houses, and the distinctive dialects, Chengdu is unique in China. Chengdu-style music is more like blues or early rock and roll than classical music, and combines colours from rustic country folk, street songs and the ear splitting cacophony of gongs and cymbals.
At dead of night, a surprised live webcast about a rehearsal of a stage play was asked to be held, in order to increase publicity. The participants include a has-been singer,an inexperienced artist,a second-rate radio anchor,a web celebrity,an amateur writer,a self-respecting stage manager,an overexcited assistant who keeps making mistakes,and a producer who ignores producing content. With the live time approaching,the casts begin to shift their attention from small talk to rehearsal. They start to revise the play and point out errors to each other,as well as getting tired,becoming selfish,jealous,and complaining…All the things associate with art, work and life in general.
The drama is selected from the famous absurd playwright Jean Genets masterpiece The Maid.This play uses the stage style of puppet opera and modern avant-garde drama style to explain the insurmountable gap between classes. In the real and fantastic play game, the ridiculous and tragic performance of the two maids is vivid and vivid. The stage style established by the use of the globe not only creates a strange and mysterious atmosphere, but also creates a tacit understanding of watching and acting different from realism. It is also the hope and fantasy in the hearts of the two maids.Yearning produces desire, desire multiplies evil thoughts, evil thoughts cause death. Its a murder, a sacrifice, a self-salvation, or a joke from two poor people.
Huang Ruo:Composer & Conductor Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New York Times for having a distinctive style. His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls Dimensionalism. Huang Ruos diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. His music has been premiered and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, etc., and conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas, and James Conlon. His new opera An American Soldier (with libretto by David Henry Hwang) has recently received its world premiere at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in June 2018, and was named one of the best 10 classical music events in 2018 by The New York Times. His installation opera Paradise Interrupted was premiered at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2015 and was performed at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2016, with future touring planning for Europe and Asia. Another opera, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, was premiered at the Santa Fe Opera in 2014. He served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and will be the visiting composer for the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil.Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976. His father, who is also a composer, began teaching him composition and piano when he was six years old. He received both traditional and Western education at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. His education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Huang Ruo was able to absorb all of these newly allowed Western influences equally. After winning the Henry Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland, he moved to the United States to further his education. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the Juilliard School. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music in NY, and is the artistic director and conductor of Ensemble FIRE. He was selected as a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States–China Relations in 2006. Huang Ruos music is published by Ricordi. For more information about the composer and his music, please visit: (www.huangruo.com) Conductor:Zhang LiangSoprano:Huang YingMezzo-Soprano:Yang GuangShanghai Philharmonic Orchestra Programme (subject to change):1. Two Pieces for Orchestra 2. Becoming Another3. An American Soldier、Bound4. Shattered steps -Intermission-1. Still / Motion2. An American Soldier、Bound3. Folk songs for orchestra I:Flower Drum Song from Feng YangII:Love Song from Kang DingIII:Little Blue FlowerIV:The Girl from the Da Ban City
On an extremely cold winter night, the freezing senator Mr. Marcel appears on the bed of Margaret, the maid, all out of a cause for keeping himself warm. The maid is driven away by the senators wife who does not know the truth. Amidst misunderstanding, the sudden death of Mr. Marcel, a blasting fuse, ignites all the conflicts. And all the stories begin around his death……The characters in this play, such as Marcels drug-addicted daughter, Mrs. Marcel with a bruised heart and the maid Margaret, are full of contradictions. Amidst the surging undercurrent of drama and emotions, the truths behind all mysteries, start to reveal themselves. The truth as told by each character depicts different stories around Mr. Marcel: The tensions in his family, the wife crying about the heartbreakingly painful surgery, and the nonchalant husband who seems in love with another……Is there any secret behind all these? Whats exactly the truth behind Marcels death?The play depicts the protagonists overlap of destinies under different masks through a multiple narrative method. Slices of life, slices of emotions, slices of mysteries…… The "Rashomon" kind of truth is sketched out with fragments of memories of different characters. The chameleonic actress Ofelia plays multiple characters in this play, another worth-noting highlight. Her flexible switch between different roles injects into the play plentiful layers and exciting suspense and twists.
Presented by the Composition Department of Central Conservatory of Music, The Chinese Chamber Opera Composition Promotion Project has been successfully held for six seasons. Since the beginning, Prof. Guo Wenjing, a renowned composer and the former chairman of the department, has been serving as the artistic director of the project. This project has made a positive contribution in fostering young talents of music composition, libretto writing and vocal performance.By the invitation of the 2019 China Shanghai International Arts Festivals R.A.W!Land, we carefully selected four students chamber operas to participate in the festival. We will gather rising stage directors, young conductors, and outstanding CCOM student singers to form teams producing these operas. On this unique platform of the Shanghai International Art Festivals Youth Promotion Plan, we would like to present this Composition in Action, advocating the synergies between compositional theory and practice, which has long been implemented throughout the composition program of the Central Conservatory of Music. 1.The Forest of SwanIt is adapted from a true story. In the beautiful and rich Qilu land, there was a paradise. There were beautiful lakes, trees embracing this piece of wetlands tightly. Every year there will be a group of spirits from Siberian fly to this oasis, and play. But with the expansion of the city, the trees along the shore were pushed down, more and more factories has been established. The original blue sky was covered with haze, the original clear lake becomes turbid, also gave off a bad smell. But the swans did not give up this home, they are tenacious to live here. But the pollution became serious and food was declining, some swans had to eat garbage, which led to the sickness of many swans. When the swans went to the edge of despair, the emergence of a young man awakened the conscience of mankind, changed their fate, and changed the lost paradise as well……2.JigokuhenThe story, set in the Heian period, depicts the conflict between Korean painter Yoshihide and his patron, the cruel and egotistical Hosokawa.The plot of Hell Screen centers on the artist Yoshihide. Yoshihide is considered the greatest painter in the land, and is often commissioned to create works for the Lord of Horikawa, who also employs Yoshihides daughter in his mansion.When Yoshihide is instructed to create a folding screen depicting the Buddhist hell, he proceeds to inflict tortures upon his apprentices, so he can see what he is trying to paint. Supernatural forces seem to be present. one time, Yoshihide speaks in a devilish voice. The story climaxes when Yoshihide asks the lord to burn a beautiful lady in a carriage so he can finish the screen. The lord concedes, but, in a macabre twist, Yoshihide must watch as his daughter and her monkey are the ones who burn.The story ends with the magnificently horrible screen completed.3.I Love Peach BlossomsAt the time of the Tang Dynasty, Feng Yan, a teenager in Yuyang City, committed adultery with Zhang Yings wife. One night, when Zhang Ying returned home drunk, the wife of Zhang hastily hid Feng Yan, but Zhang Ying pressed Feng Yans towel on the chair when he was drunken. And by the time Feng Yan wanted to escape, Zhang Ying beckoned his wife to bring the towel. She quietly came to Zhang Yings side, and at that time the towel was pressed under his body and she had mistaken Feng Yans intention that it was his knife in the waist that he wanted to kill her husband. Then she quietly drew out the knife and handed it to Feng Yan and Feng Yan felt that the woman was ruthless and killed her with it.4.Wang QiA scholar named Wang Qi decides to learn magic arts from Taoist priests on a mountain. One year later when he has made some achievements, he returns home and shows off to his wife. She complaints about his neglect of the family, but he doesnt think so. The reunion of this couple sparks a farce.
All of us might open a "jar" in our life.A desolate wilderness, there are three human called Large, Medium and Small playing with a jar and each had his own metaphor for it.Then, a scholar began to join the team, followed Large, Medium and Small together to play, explore and study... What is it in this jar? Is it a treasure? A steamed bun? Or...?It might be difficult for audiences to understand this play because there will be a series of absurd lines from time to time. For instance, like the character who will open the jar in the play, what seems to be doing is quite reasonable, but in fact it is meaningless and a bit ridiculous action. It used prophecies to awaken what people might have been through. In addition, the style of the play will be the same as zhangs interpretation of the script, with a "most rustic, clumsy, and silly" attitude to show the script that a hint of the expression.