Shortly after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague, in the former Czechoslovakia, composer Karel Husa felt so enraged by the assault that he wrote Music for Prague 1968 while residing in the US.
A powerful composition, Husa completed the piece in less than two months and dedicated it to the people of Prague. Originally banned by the Communist government, Music for Prague went unheard in its namesake city until the 1989 election of a non-Communist government.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIPEI SIRENS WINDS CONCERT BAND
Now one of the most popular pieces in Husa's repertoire, Music for Prague has been performed numerous times around the world and will be presented this evening by The Taipei Sirens Winds Concert Band
Tonight's performance is the spring offering of the Sirens quarterly concert series (based on the four seasons). While this is not the first time they have performed Husa's famous piece, it is a first under the direction of Zhang, who having studied the Czech composer's work for some time, believes it to be a monumental work for wind music.
"It is a challenging piece of technical music. As a 20th century composition it is not written in traditional tonal music and demands a great deal of its musicians," Zhang said. Correspondingly it conveys a great deal of emotion to its listeners by using music to recreate the atmosphere of fear during the Soviet invasion.
While Husa's is not the only piece of music being performed tonight, it is the evening's main attraction. Zhang also promises a diverse collection of music that includes selections from celebrated works such as Bill Whelan's Riverdance, Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow and Ghosts by Stephen McNeff, which tells the life-stories of seven ghosts notorious throughout European history. As a special appearance the Sirens have also invited Yan Ching-shyan
"We are aiming for diversity so we chose a range of pieces and hope to present an alternative program to a regular band concert," Zhang said.
Performance notes:
What: Taipei Sirens Winds Concert Band will perform Music for Prague 1968 tonight at 7:30pm at the National Concert Hall (
Where: The National Concert Hall is located at 21-1 Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei (
How much: Tickets range in price from NT$200 to NT$700 and can be booked through the box office at (02) 2343 1364.
Most heroes are remembered for the battles they fought. Taiwan’s Black Bat Squadron is remembered for flying into Chinese airspace 838 times between 1953 and 1967, and for the 148 men whose sacrifice bought the intelligence that kept Taiwan secure. Two-thirds of the squadron died carrying out missions most people wouldn’t learn about for another 40 years. The squadron lost 15 aircraft and 148 crew members over those 14 years, making it the deadliest unit in Taiwan’s military history by casualty rate. They flew at night, often at low altitudes, straight into some of the most heavily defended airspace in Asia.
This month the government ordered a one-year block of Xiaohongshu (小紅書) or Rednote, a Chinese social media platform with more than 3 million users in Taiwan. The government pointed to widespread fraud activity on the platform, along with cybersecurity failures. Officials said that they had reached out to the company and asked it to change. However, they received no response. The pro-China parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), immediately swung into action, denouncing the ban as an attack on free speech. This “free speech” claim was then echoed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),
Many people in Taiwan first learned about universal basic income (UBI) — the idea that the government should provide regular, no-strings-attached payments to each citizen — in 2019. While seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 US presidential election, Andrew Yang, a politician of Taiwanese descent, said that, if elected, he’d institute a UBI of US$1,000 per month to “get the economic boot off of people’s throats, allowing them to lift their heads up, breathe, and get excited for the future.” His campaign petered out, but the concept of UBI hasn’t gone away. Throughout the industrialized world, there are fears that
Like much in the world today, theater has experienced major disruptions over the six years since COVID-19. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and social media have created a new normal of geopolitical and information uncertainty, and the performing arts are not immune to these effects. “Ten years ago people wanted to come to the theater to engage with important issues, but now the Internet allows them to engage with those issues powerfully and immediately,” said Faith Tan, programming director of the Esplanade in Singapore, speaking last week in Japan. “One reaction to unpredictability has been a renewed emphasis on
RSS