Theater
Four Winds, Four Bliss (大四囍), a dance by the Century Contemporary Dance Company (世紀當代舞團) dealing with the topic of traditional Chinese marriage.
● At the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taoyuan County (桃園縣文化局), 21 Xianfu Rd, Taoyuan County(桃園市縣府路21號).
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHINSUI CHORUS
● Tickets are NT$150 and are available through NTCH ticketing.
● Tonight 7:30pm
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIPEI CHILDREN'S ART FESTIVAL
Cloud Gate Outdoor Performance presents a mixed program of dances from Taiwan's premier dance company. The free outdoor performance has been a Cloud Gate tradition since 1992, and has proved wildly popular, especially as tickets for Cloud Gate performance generally sell out very quickly. On this occasion, the troupe will be performing tomorrow at the Banciao Sports Stadium(台北縣板橋體育場).
● 278 Hansheng E Rd, Banciao City, Taipei County (台北縣板橋市漢生東路278號). In case of rain, the performance will be delayed until Sunday.
● Admission is free
● Tomorrow at 7:30pm
Classical Music
A Tribute to Taiwan -- San Francisco Crystal Youth Choir (晶艷人生 -- 舊金山青少年合唱團) will sing at the National Concert Hall tonight. Founded in March 1994, Crystal Choir drew its original members from a group of musically inclined Chinese-American children residing in the San Francisco Bay area and are recognized by the Voices of America's Future as an outstanding mixed choral organization. Conducted by Chang Chih-chen (張智真) and Chiang Ching-fen (姜靜芬) and accompanied by pianist Lin Yung-hsieh, the choir will present a program including Rossini's The Barber of Seville Overture, Mozart's Papageno-Papageno Duet, Jenkins's Adiemous -- We Will Draw Near, Rimsky-Korsakov's The Fight of the Bumblebee, Simon's Bridge Over Troubled Water, Belafonte and Freedman's Turn the World Around, Wen Lung-hsin's (溫隆信) Taiwanese Aboriginal songs, and other Taiwanese songs from Cheng Chih-jen (鄭智仁) and Lin Yu-ling (林育伶).
● At the National Concert Hall
● As of press time, NT$1,000 tickets are sold out, but seats are available from NT$300 to NT$800 through NTCH ticketing.
● Tonight at 7:30pm
Pure, Fantasy, and Neoclassic Piano Duet Concert (淨.幻象.新古典 -- 雙鋼琴演奏會) will feature Lin Ya-hsu (林雅敘) and Lin Yueh-jeng (林玥礽) at the National Recital Hall tonight. The two sisters are graduates of the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. In their piano duo, they will display their sense of unity by playing Bach's Goldberg Variations, Stravinsky's Concerto for two Pianos, and selections of Messiaen's piano pieces.
● At National Recital Hall, Taipei
● As of press time, NT$400 and NT$500 tickets are sold out, but NT$300 seats are available through ERA ticketing.
● Tonight at 7:30pm
Krystian Zimerman Piano Recital (桂冠鋼琴詩人齊瑪曼獨奏會) will be held at the National Concert Hall tomorrow. Polish pianist Zimerman will include Taiwan in his world tour to celebrate his 50th birthday. The program will include Mozart's Sonata in C Major, K330, Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, Gershwin's 3 Preludes, and Chopin's Mazurkas, Op.24 and Sonata No.3 in B Minor, Op.58B.
● At the National Concert Hall, Taipei
● Tickets are sold out.
● Saturday at 7:30pm
Philippe Hu's 2006 Saxophone Recital IV -- Devil's Rag (胡東龍薩克斯風獨奏會 -- 魔鬼的散拍) will be held at the National Recital Hall. Hu was trained at L'Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, C.N.R. de Toulouse, and C.N.R. de Versailles in France and studied with French saxophone masters Bouhey, Fourmeau, Lecoq, and Desloges. Hu won the Premier Accessite in Saxophone at Concours General de Musique d'Art Dramatique Leopold Bellan in May 1998 in Paris and the Premier Prix given by C.N.R. de Versailles in 2000. Accompanied by pianist Chen Yi-an (陳怡安), Hu will present a program including Dubois's Concerto, Demersseman's Fantasie, Decruck's Sonata, Claude's Fantasia, and Matitia's Devel's Rag.
● At the National Recital Hall, Taipei
● Tickets cost from NT$200 to NT$400 and are available through ERA ticketing.
● Saturday at 7:30pm
The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic (柏林愛樂12把大提琴) will play at the National Concert Hall on July 12 and at the Chungli Arts Center on July 13. Every symphony orchestra has its cello section, but nowhere else in the world have the deeper, larger strings joined together to form an independent ensemble -- an orchestra within an orchestra -- meeting with success after success. The concert will present a program of works by Piazolla, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Part, Verdi, Francaix, Blacher, Schostakovitch, Kaiser-Lindemann, Gershwin, Granda, The Beatles, and Jorge Ben, as well as some traditional Taiwanese folk music.
● At the National Concert Hall on July 12 and at the Chungli Arts Center (中壢藝術館音樂廳), 16, Chungmei Rd, Chungli City (中壢市中美路16號) on July 13
● As of press time, seats are available from NT$1,800 to NT$3,600 for Taipei's concert and from NT$800 to NT$2,000 for Chungli's concert through ERA ticketing.
● Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30pm
Woodwind Quintet Concert (木管五重奏音樂會) will feature the Harmony Wind Ensemble (雅韻室內樂團) at the National Concert Hall on July 13. Oboist Hsu Chih-yun (許芷芸), flutist Chen Yun-lan(陳韻嵐), clarinetist Tsui Wu-fan (崔悟凡), Bassoonist (洪菀簌), and horn player Wu Chien-ying (吳汧潁) will form the quintet and the program will include Bach's Prelude and Fugue, Damase's Dix-Sept Variations, D'Rivera's Aires Tropicales, Greaves's Beethoven's Fifth Bossa Nova and Mozart's Turkey Rock Mambo, Kreutzer's Ferdinand Raimund, and Verdi's Nabucco Overture.
● At the National Recital Hall, Taipei
● Tickets cost from NT$300 to NT$500 and are available through ERA ticketing.
● Thursday at 7:30pm
Contemporary
Blue Note (藍調) will be featuring Metamorphosis (變形蟲爵士樂團), one of Taiwan's longest running jazz ensembles every Friday night this month.
● Tonight at 9:30pm
● At 4F, 171 Roosevelt Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市羅斯福路三段171號4樓).
● Cover is NT$300
Witch House (女巫店) features singer and keyboardist Sangpuy Kedadeban of the Flying Fish and Cloud Leopard Music Collective (飛魚雲豹音樂工團), presenting a program of Aboriginal music.
● Tickets are NT$300 at the door.
● Tonight at 9:30pm
More Aboriginal music follows with Hsiao Mei and Chia Chia, putting their own take on various Beinan ballads.
● Tickets are NT$300 at the door.
● Tomorrow at 9:30pm
● 7, Ln 56, Xinsheng S Rd, Sec 3, Taipei (台北市新生南路三段56巷7號).
The Black Eyed Peas are scheduled to perform at Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, Taipei (台北中山足球場) July 27 as part of their Monkey Business world tour. Tickets for the gig cost between NT$1,300 and NT$2,800 and are available through ERA ticketing. Call (02) 2341-9898 or visit www.ticket.com.tw. The US-based band has worked with giants in their genre including Jurassic 5 and The Roots and are a prominent feature of the current hip-hop revival.
Members Will.I.Am, Apl.de.Ap and Taboo produce catchy numbers without sacrificing their integrity and have proven popular here in Taiwan, particularly their Don't Phunk With My Heart which can be heard at nearly every nightmarket, shopping district and club. For a genre which has been criticized for it's sexism and violence the Peas have kept it clean.
Exhibitions
Spectacles -- Capture From the Reel "Life" Chuang-kai Yu First Solo Video Installation Exhibition (倒影中的真實 -- 莊凱宇錄像裝置個展), a self-reflective work that meditates the merging spheres of real life and reel life. The artist, speaking in a clip on the gallery's Web site, says "Life to me is a film screened at different speeds. The real and the illusionary are both played out in the life reels."
● Shin Leh Yuan Art Space (新樂園藝術空間), 15-2, Ln 11, Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 2, Taipei (中山北路二段11巷15-2號).
● Open Wednesday to Sunday from 1pm to 8pm. Call (02) 2561-1548.
● Until Sunday
A Day in Pompeii (龐貝城的一天), a touring exhibition from Italy featuring 260 items excavated from the ancient city of Pompeii that was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1AD. The exhibition is divided into 10 areas including food and drink, furniture and decorations, religious life and the economy so as to give visitors a glance at ancient Roman life. Items on display include five casts of the petrified bodies of the city's former residents.
● National Taiwan Science Education Center (國立台灣科學教育館), 189, Shihshang Rd, Shihlin (台北市士商路189號).
● Open Tuesday to Friday from 9am to 6pm; Saturday and Sunday from 9pm to 7pm. Call (02) 2837-8777
● Until Oct. 29
Au Ho-nien's Brush Paintings and Calligraphy Exhibition (歐豪年書畫展), featuring one hundred Chinese paintings and calligraphy works dating from 1957 to 2003 by one of the leading contemporary artists of the Lingnan school. The term Lingnan was first adopted by artists living in the Guangdong area at the beginning of the 20th century and was extended to refer to the art movement that blended traditional Oriental themes such as mountains, landscapes and flowers with techniques more commonly associated with Western art of the day.
● Hwa Kang Museum, Chinese Culture University (中國文化大學華岡博物館), 55, Huakong Rd, Yangming Mountain, Taipei (台北市陽明山華岡路55號).
● Open Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm. Call (02) 2861-0511
● Until July 31
The 19 Century Official Salon Shows in Paris (榮耀之門-十九世紀法國巴黎官方沙龍展) Selected from the collections of the Chi Mei Museum (奇美博物館), the special exhibition introduces local citizens to the salon culture in Paris during the 19th century. Sixty-three paintings and sculptures once presented at the salons give visitors a comprehensive view on the evolution of the French cultural practice from 1783 to 1906.
● Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館), 20, Meishuguan Rd, Gushan District, Kaohsiung (高雄市鼓山區美術館路20號).
● Open Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Call (07) 555-0331.
● Until Nov. 26
Macro Vision, Micro Analysis, Multiple Reflection Contemporary Art in Taiwan Since 1987 (台灣當代藝術特展巨視•微觀•多重鏡反), selected from the museum's collections, the special exhibition features installation and interactive digital works reflecting the momentum of Taiwan's contem-porary art in the 20th century.
● National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung (國立台灣美術館), 2 Wuchuan W Rd, Sec 1, Taichung (台中市五權西路一段2號).
● Open Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Call (04) 2372-3552
● Until Nov. 19
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