Print

Mail

wiki links

TCO throws off the shackles of its moribund past

Taipei Chinese Orchestra music director En Shao is shaking things up at the city government institution with a new look for performers, collaboration with U-Theatre and innovative training program. PHOTO: COURTESY OF TAIPEI CHINESE ORCHESTRA

The new music director of the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (臺北市立國樂團, TCO) is shaking things up at the long moribund city government institution. Tianjin-born En Shao (邵恩), who joined the orchestra earlier this year, has ambitious plans for the group this season with a wide variety of local and foreign musicians and singers.

The TCO is launching its 2007-2008 season with the first program in its three-part Great Masters Series, a collaboration with U-Theatre called Breaking Dawn, tomorrow at the orchestra's home theater, the Zhongshan Auditorium.

En originally approached U-Theatre to talk about doing a show with the idea of a program where the Muzha-based drumming group would just be the guest artists, Ken Kuo (郭耿甫), U-Theatre's manager, said in a telephone call yesterday.

However, U-Theatre founder Liu Chin-min (劉靜敏) thought a more integrated show would be more interesting and the musical segments should be linked so that they flowed from one to the other to form a unified performance.

Performance notes WHAT: Taipei Chinese Orchestra and U-Theatre, Breaking Dawn WHEN: Tomorrow at 2:30pm and 7:30pm WHERE: Zhongshan Hall (台北市中山堂), at 98 Yenping S Rd, Taipei (台北市延平南路98號) TICKETS: NT$500, NT$1,000, NT$1,500, NT$2,000 and NT$3,000; available through NTCH ticketing

STYLE COUNSEL

She had lots of other suggestions, including changing the TCO's attire, stage design and lighting, which En and the TCO's general director, famed Taiwanese composer Chung Yiu-kwong (鍾耀光), embraced. The orchestra will have a whole new look tomorrow, albeit a classical one, of wide-legged trousers, tunics and long jackets in shades of gray and slate blue that resemble the outfits worn by musicians in old Chinese paintings. It's a far cry from their musician's old red and black "concert wear." There will also be using newly designed chairs and music stands.

Liu also thought the musicians should change the way they move, even how they sit, Kuo said, so she invited the orchestra to U-Theatre's Laoquanshan (老泉山) home to train with the group.

U-Theatre's austere, Zen-like approach to their discipline includes long runs and marathon walks, meditation and tai chi and martial arts training. Not exactly the normal rehearsal program for qin and erhu players.

"It was a shock for them. They are more like government workers than performing artists," Kuo said of the TCO musicians. (It is worth noting the TCO was set up by Taipei City's Department of Education in 1979 although now it's under the city's Department of Cultural Affairs.)

"But they were willing to change the way they work," he said. "The new director is very open-minded, very willing to try new things."

MANY STRINGS TO EN SHAO'S BOW

That should be no surprise, since En's talent has taken him from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music to the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China to studies in the UK on a Rhodes Fellowship, to associate conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland and, most recently, music director of the Macau Orchestra. In between he has conducted orchestras in Spain, Finland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Hungary, the US, Canada and many others places. He is clearly not someone afraid of new challenges.

The program consists of nine compositions, including three by U-Theatre's drumming director Huang Chih-chun (黃誌群), two by Chung and one that they collaborated on.

While the two performances of Breaking Dawn tomorrow (at 2:20pm and 7:30pm) are the only ones scheduled so far, the TCO and U-Theatre hope they will be able to take the program overseas, Kuo said.

While the TCO has a busy line-up of performances this fall (including what they are billing as a "rendezvous" with James Galway on Nov. 8, the second program in the Great Masters series), the 19-year old U-Theatre is focusing on their second mountain festival on Laoquanshan at the end of November.

Unlike last fall's show, which featured an Aboriginal song and dance troupe and members of the Ballet National du Burina, this year's program will just be the U-Theatre. Kuo said the company is working on a program that has tentatively been titled a "mountain suite."

This story has been viewed 1132 times.