View a behind-the-scenes look at a rehearsal for A Chinese Home. The piece, conceived by Wu Man, David Harrington, and Chen Shi-Zheng, receives its world premiere at Carnegie Hall on November 3.
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Related events: November 3, 2009 Kronos Quartet / Wu Man
David Harrington, founder and artistic director of Kronos Quartet, describes the genesis of A Chinese Home, which receives its world premiere on November 3:
In 1992, I visited the home of composers Zhou Long and Chen Yi in New York. They shared a lot of music with me that evening, including the brilliant artistry of Wu Man, who had recently arrived in the United States. I heard all sorts of possibilities in Wu Man’s vivid pipa sound, and I got in touch with her immediately.
Bartók was strongly attracted to the dramatic and horrifying tale of The Miraculous Mandarin, with its underlying message about the power of human love. As The Miraculous Mandarin begins, a girl is forced by three thugs to stand in a window, luring men inside to be robbed. Her first two victims, an old rake and a shy young man, are penniless; the third, the eerie but wealthy mandarin, presents a horrifying challenge. The girl finds him repulsive, but she slowly begins her dance of seduction. Read more »
Gerard McBurney discusses the political and social background of Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin.
Related events: November 4, 2009 Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
A Chinese Home receives its world premiere at Carnegie Hall on November 3, with a performance by Kronos Quartet and Wu Man. The piece was inspired by the extraordinary story of a 300-year-old house from a southeastern Chinese village that was dismantled piece-by-piece at the turn of the millennium and rebuilt at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Wu Man describes her first time visiting the house:
I visited Yin Yu Tang at the Peabody Essex Museum for the first time in 2003. This house—an 18th-century home from southeastern China that was disassembled and re-erected piece-by-piece at PEM in Massachusetts—brought back many memories for me. I stayed in the home for quite a long while; I looked through each room, touching tables, chairs, and beds, taking in every little detail. It reminded me of my grandma's home and my childhood life. I didn't want to leave until the staff came to get me!
Described as “an all-terrain vehicle in contemporary culture” (New Yorker), the Kronos Quartet has commissioned 650 new works for quartet since its inception more than 35 years ago.
The Kronos Quartet’s five Carnegie Hall Perspectives concerts feature music from minimalist original Terry Riley, works by composers from the Arctic Circle, performances on Angolan toy instruments, collaborations with virtuosic musicians from different traditions, and contemporary Chinese works. The Kronos Quartet will also lead a Professional Training Workshop, presented by The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall.
Related events: November 3, 2009 A Chinese Home; March 11, 2010 Kronos Celebrates Terry Riley; March 12, 2010 Playing with Toys & Technology; March 13, 2010 Tundra Songs; March 14, 2010 Music Without Borders; March 17, 2010 Kronos Quartet Master Class; March 21, 2010 Kronos Quartet Young Artists Concert
On November 4, Colin Currie peforms on a dazzling array of water percussion instruments in Tan Dun’s Water Concerto, a concerto of thrilling sights and intoxicating sounds. One thing is for sure: Things are going to get a little wet.
Watch a behind-the-scenes video of Colin Currie preparing for Tan Dun’s Water Concerto »
Related events: November 4, 2009 Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
Composer Angel Lam often bases her music on her own short stories—so much so, that she even plays narrator for the NY premiere of her most recent Carnegie Hall–commissioned work, Awakening from a Disappearing Garden, that features soloist Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on November 7. This is not the first commission that the young Chinese-born composer has premiered at Carnegie Hall. She previously participated in two Professional Training Workshops presented by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, resulting in two works: Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain (for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, which has recorded the work twice) and Sun, Moon, and Star (for a workshop led by Osvaldo Golijov and Dawn Upshaw).
Angel Lam's Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain
Recorded live at Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood Music Center
Iris dévoilée, which will be performed on November 10, is a musical portrait—not of a particular woman, but of woman in a universal sense, as a female archetype. Iris is Goethe’s ewig-Weibliche, the eternal feminine, and the unveiling referred to in the composition’s title is tantamount to her being discovered or revealed. The nine movements of Iris dévoilée, as Chen Qigang explains, portray nine aspects, nine frames of mind, nine facets of the same woman—changeable, elusive. They form a mosaic of impressions and tempers, appearances and natures that aims to express her unfathomable richness. Read more »
“Whether conducting music that is seldom played or music that is played too often for its own good,” said the New York Times of David Robertson’s compelling musical approach, “[he] makes everything seem fresh and startling.” Here, Robertson gives the inside scoop on how he creates such critically hailed programs.
“The forest, with its nightingale, the pure soul of the child who falls in love with its song … the baroque luxury of the Chinese Court, with its bizarre etiquette, its palace fêtes, its thousands of little bells and lanterns, and the grotesque humming of the mechanical Japanese nightingale."—Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky’s opera The Nightingale, which receives its first complete performance at Carnegie Hall on November 7, is based on a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. Stravinsky was in the final years of study with his mentor, Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov when he went to work on it. Read more »
Excerpt from Stravinsky's The Nightingale
Reri Grist, soprano / Chorus and Orchestra of the Opera Sociey of Washington D.C. / Igor Stravinsky, conductor
Sony Classical
Related events: November 7, 2009 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
China has already changed classical music’s global demographics. The sheer size of the country, however, is bound to change the game altogether. Inspired by a growing number of international figures like Tan Dun and Lang Lang, China’s 80 million music students have set out to conquer the world. Read more »
“I don’t know what a Chinese composer should be. No one can regulate what Chinese music should be. Any pre-design of what is or is not Chinese will be wrong. My purpose is to create, and I feel that there’s ground beneath my feet. Even if the Chinese people don’t accept me, my compositions are still part of Chinese culture—or at least a part of contemporary Chinese life—simply because I live in China.”
View an annotated photo album, courtesy of Guo Wenjing. »
China has a long history of musical ensembles; on rare imperial occasions, players could number in the hundreds. These, however, usually involved multiple players on a single part. The modern incarnation of Chinese orchestras—traditional instruments in symphonic groupings—dates back only to the 1950s, after the People’s Republic had called on China’s musical community to revolutionize the art for the Chinese people. Read more »
The Asian–performing arts critic for the Financial Times, Ken Smith, lends his expertise and opinions to a series of posts related to Carnegie Hall’s Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture. This blog—active throughout the festival—includes behind-the-scenes performance information, concert recaps, photo slideshows, and more, to enhance your festival experience.
Pipa player Wu Man is a special guest on WNYC’s Soundcheck, today at 2 PM. She will discuss her interest in the traditional folk music of her homeland, as featured in Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, and will join qin player Zhao Jiazhen for a live performance.
On October 21 at 1 PM, Carnegie Hall kicked off Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture with a traditional lion dance and “eye-dotting” ceremony. 
For two of the composers on the Juilliard Orchestra’s October 28 program, the Far East held an alluring sway. Gustav Mahler found inspiration for his Das lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) in a collection of poems from the eighth and ninth-century Tang Dynasty, but never tried to seriously imitate Chinese music. In Lou Harrison’s Pacifika Rondo, the composer uses Eastern instrumentation, almost to the point of caricature. Jeremy Geffen, Carnegie Hall’s Director of Artistic Planning, discusses the importance of seeing beyond the political incorrectness of Harrison’s approach, and appreciating the passion of his cultural curiosity.
The Dong people, one of China’s 55 acknowledged non-Han minorities, have long been considered one of the nation’s most musical minorities. Numbering more than 2.5 million, the Dong live mainly in the Guizhou, Hunan, and Guangxi provinces in southwestern China, maintaining a way of life geographically and culturally removed from the Chinese mainstream. Read more »
On Wednesday, October 21 at 1 PM, a lively lion dance ceremony in front of Carnegie Hall marks the start of Ancient Paths, Modern Voices. Carnegie Hall’s Executive and Artistic Director, Clive Gillinson, and pipa virtuoso Wu Man take part in an "eye-dotting" ceremony, that symbolically awakens both the lion and the spirit of the festival. It is followed by an outdoor traditional lion dance, featuring percussive music and the intricate puppetry of the Quanzhou Marionette Theater. The festivities take place in front of Carnegie Hall's historic façade on West 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.
When filmmaker Spike Lee heard Terence Blanchard improvising a theme at the piano during the Mo’ Better Blues soundtrack sessions, he asked the trumpeter if he could use the melody in the movie, and has since chosen the composer for every subsequent film soundtrack.
Terence Blanchard appears at Carnegie Hall on October 28 as part of a national tour to introduce his current recording Choices.
On Wednesday, November 4, David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra evoke two sides of China: Bartók’s and Stravinsky's depictions of the China of fairytales, and a more realistic China, emerging in music by Bright Sheng and Tan Dun. In Tan Dun’s concerto, percussion soloist Colin Currie makes intoxicating sounds, plunging his hands quite literally into water.
Chinese pianist Lang Lang sells out concert halls, circles the globe to appear with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, and makes appearances on late-night TV. But despite the all the glamour, his passion for classical music began as it does for many kids—watching Saturday morning cartoons and sitting at the family piano.
On October 21, music, song, and puppetry unite as the talented puppeteers and musicians of the Quanzhou Marionette Theater perform selections from Chinese folktales.
In the spring of 1978, the composition class of China's Central Conservatory of Music began with a total of 32 students. All but five appear in a remarkable class photo dated January 10, 1981. Click the photo below to enlarge. Roll over the individual faces to identify them and learn where they are today.
Carnegie Hall opened its 119th Season on October 1, featuring the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniele Gatti, with pianist Evgeny Kissin and harpist Ann Hobson Pilot. The Gala, which was held at The Waldorf=Astoria and attended by more than 600 guests, raised $3 million to directly support Carnegie Hall’s artistic and education programming.
Due to emergency surgery for appendicitis, fortepianist Andreas Staier has, with great regret, had to postpone his October 16 all-Haydn recital in Zankel Hall. This performance has been rescheduled for Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 7:30 PM. The program remains the same.
All tickets to the October 16 concert will be honored on January 12. For further information, ticketholders may contact CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800.
Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), which will be performed at Carnegie Hall on October 28, seems to represent the shiver of night descending both on its composer, still only in his 40s but terminally ill, and on an entire culture of huge achievement and grandiloquence. Words from ancient Chinese poets—distant in time and place—come to speak, or to sing, of evening, of autumn, of memory, and of death. Solitary voices stand on the edge of a world of sound and look out, confronting human mortality and finding a measure of solace and acceptance. Read more about Mahler’s symphonies »
After China's Cultural Revolution, the country's music conservatories once again opened their doors to students who would go on to revitalize contemporary music. This first graduating class—known as the “Class of 1978”—included such composers as Chen Qigang, Tan Dun, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, and Guo Wenjing.
On October 23, Murray Perahia performs a recital of works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin. Chopin’s works for solo piano demand an extraordinary technique, yet the fast runs, sweeping arpeggios (broken chords), and delicate ornaments always decorate—rather than dominate—the melody. In “Aeolian Harp,” for example, the fluttering figurations that test the pianist’s dexterity embellish the languorous musical line unfolding above.
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