Don’t be surprised if the musicians run into the audience at MK Oriental’s (東方猴) concert at the National Taichung Theater tomorrow.
Playing a fusion of Western classical, traditional Chinese and pop, the band’s music is best suited for proper concert halls, but Wang wants to liven things up with more interaction with the crowd.
“In the West, the formality of classical concerts is a longstanding tradition,” band founder and classically-trained flutist Eric Wang (王文劭) says. “But Taiwan is a relatively new society. We can try different methods here to engage more people.”
Photo courtesy of MK Oriental
Tomorrow’s show at the National Taichung Theater will be the first time the band is trying this new performance format, which will also include skits and dance-alongs, which will probably go well with MK Oriental’s cheerful, upbeat and dream-like instrumental tunes.
“Our society and economy aren’t doing too well, so we want to write happy songs,” Wang says. “Life is gloomy enough.”
Wang, who was accepted into the Paris Conservatory at the age of 16, performed numerous solo recitals in Taiwan until he felt that classical music was not reaching a wide enough audience. In 2013, he made his first foray into fusion by collaborating with a rock band.
“The issue was that rock music ultimately comes from the West,” he says. “How should we make our own music? There are many music elements from the East that are not often considered.”
After several lineup changes, MK Oriental now features flute, electric guitar, bass, drums, piano, violin and the liuqin (柳琴), a Chinese lute-like stringed instrument. Most of the melodies are based on the Chinese pentatonic scale.
Since the three musical styles use different scores and the instruments aren’t often played in the same setting, Wang says it took a while to coordinate the practices and start writing music. But with their foundation now set, he hopes to eventually expand their repertoire to other Eastern musical styles such as Indian, Tibetan or traditional Taiwanese.
“In a few years we hope to be a melting pot of Asian music,” he says.
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