The New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the US and one of the oldest in the world, arrived in Taipei yesterday to begin its tour this year of five Asian cities.
The orchestra is staging two concerts at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, yesterday and today, and another concert tomorrow at the Kaohsiung Cultural Center before leaving for Hong Kong on Friday. It will also perform in Shanghai, Beijing and Pyongyang during the 11-concert tour, which will conclude on Feb. 24.
Since its first visit to Asia in 1961, the New York Philharmonic has returned 12 times, last visiting Taiwan in 1998. The current tour is sponsored by the Credit Suisse Group, a leading global financial services company headquartered in Zurich.
"The Philharmonic has a significant record of touring Asia, but this will be our most substantial tour of the region in our history," said the orchestra's president and executive director, Zarin Mehta.
"I am delighted to be returning to Asia with the Philharmonic. It is always a great honor to present this orchestra to audiences around the world," music director Lorin Maazel said.
Maazel, 78, became the music director of the orchestra in 2002. He has led more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances over the course of his career.
Maazel will conduct the orchestra in playing works by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Elgar, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rossini and Tchaikovsky. Soloists include Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, principal horn Philip Myers, and guest cellist Alisa Weilerstein.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching