The world’s top musicians will gather in Taiwan for a triennial percussion extravaganza later this month, presenting a wide range of musical styles.
Thirteen groups, three local and 10 international, and two individual percussionists, will join in the seventh installment of the Taiwan International Percussion Convention (TIPC), which was launched in 1992 by the renowned Taipei-based Ju Percussion Group (JPG).
The teams will stage 26 performances from May 20 to May 28 in eight venues across Taiwan — in Taipei, New Taipei City (新北市), Taoyuan County, Hsinchu County, Greater Taichung, Changhua County, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung.
“The festival has become a platform for local percussion bands to exchange new ideas with their counterparts from the international community over the past 20 years,” said Ju Tzong--ching (朱宗慶), founder of JPG.
He said fans may find the line-up of the groups familiar, because most of them have been invited to TIPC or other events in Taiwan, but each of the teams will perform new pieces that have not been played here before.
Two of the new groups joining this year are Ensemble 1002, a local group that will team up with Bulgarian-born percussionist Svet Stoyanov in two performances, and South Korea’s Hannuri Yeon-hee Dan.
NEW AND OLD
The more familiar acts include: the world’s oldest percussion band, Les Percussions de Strasbourg; Israel’s rising duo PercaDu; the Amsterdam Percussion Group, renowned for its classical and modern mix; the Percussion Ensemble Okada of Japan, Asia’s first percussion group; New Zealand’s Strike Percussion; Seoul Percussion Ensemble; and Azaguno from the US.
FROM THE HOSTS
The festival will begin with a performance by JPG, which will present a dozen of its commissioned works that were written by Taiwanese and international composers.
JPG will also debut two compositions at the upcoming concerts.
One was composed by John Psathas, the composer for the Athens Olympic Games, and the other by Emmanuel Sejourne, who is collaborating with JPG for the third time.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods