Award-winning and globe-trotting French pianist Richard Clayderman is returning to Taiwan where he will kick off a three-day tour of the island tonight at the Chihshan Hall (至善廳) in Kaohsiung. His repertoire will include music from blockbuster movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter. And no Clayderman program would be complete without the song that started his solo career, Ballade pour Adeline.
Dubbed “the prince of romance” by Nancy Regan, Clayderman was born Philippe Pages in Paris in 1953. The son of a music teacher, it is said that by the age of six the young Pages could read music better than he could his school textbooks.
Clayderman, who arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday, began his music career at age 12, when he was accepted into the prestigious Conservatoire of Music in Paris. When at 16 he took the school's prestigious first prize it became apparent that he was destined to become a brilliant pianist.
But to the surprise of his teachers, he cast aside classical music in favor of pursuing a career in rock music. However, contemporary music proved a difficult nut for the young musician to crack.
With a sick father and a rock career going nowhere, Clayderman decided to find work as an accompanist, where his talents landed him work with well-known French rock acts such as Michel Sardou and Johnny Halliday.
His star continued to rise when in 1976 a famous French music producer signed him on as a pianist to record a gentle piano ballad for his daughter called Ballade pour Adeline.
Still deep in the days of disco, his producers told him they'd be satisfied if they sold 10,000 copies. To everyone's surprise, the single sold a phenomenal 22 million copies in 38 countries, catapulting Clayderman to international fame.
The Guinness Book of World Records hails him as “the most successful pianist in the world,” having sold over 70 million records. He has recorded over 1,000 tunes and performed over 1,200 concerts worldwide. He also has a staggering 267 Gold and 70 Platinum discs to his credit.
Clayderman attributes his incredible success to the “New Romantic” style that he is credited with creating.
“The new romantic style gets its inspiration from classical music,” says Clayderman, “and then I add my own elements to it.”
Clayderman's sold out concert last year is what has brought him back. “I love Taiwan. I love performing for people who have such a deep response to my music,” he said.
Clayderman's grueling performance and recording schedule — he's been know to perform 200 concerts a year — would leave most other musicians breathless, but the youthful-looking pianist attributes his rigorous schedule to his love of music.
When asked why Clayderman is so popular in Taiwan, a young promoter named Cathy Shi said, “people in Taiwan don't have a long tradition of listening to [Western] classical music. Most of us prefer to listen to easy-listening or love songs, which is why Richard is so popular here.”
Popular indeed. The concerts in Kaohsiung and Taipei are almost sold out and there is only a hand full of tickets left for the Taichung performance. And with a charming and relaxed stage persona combined with his natural good looks, there is sure to be a few concertgoers swooning at his feet.
Performance Notes:
Who: Richard Clayderman
Where: At Chihshan Hall, Kaohsiung (高雄至善廳) tonight; tomorrow at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei (台北國父紀念館); Sunday at Huisun Auditorium of the National Chung Hsing University (台中中興大學惠蓀堂)
When: Tonight at 8pm, tomorrow at 2:30pm and 7:30pm, and Sunday at 7:30pm
Tickets: NT$800 to NT$2,400 for Kaohsuing; NT$800 to NT$2,500 for Taipei; NT$700 to NT$2,500 for Taichung
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s