Violinist Lin Cho-liang (林昭亮) will once again be taking his place in the director's chair in the coming weeks, when the hugely popular graduate of The Juilliard School puts down his fiddle in order to oversee the 3rd International Music Festival (IMF,
First asked by then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to oversee the inaugural IMF in 1997, the task of ensuring the triennial event has an all-star line-up and brings some of the world's most talented classical performers to Taiwan has fallen on Lin's shoulders ever since.
One of the few international music festivals to hold performances on both national stages as well small regional ones, the IMF will this year be holding concerts at venues in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Hsinchu and Miaoli. And as with previous years, several of the festival's concerts will be broadcasts live on television and radio.
PHOTO: MNA
The festival's truly nationwide outlook has meant that over the years it has generated substantial patronage and viewing figures, with nearly one million people nationwide attending or tuning in to the 2000 festival.
For this year's IMF, Lin has chosen a line-up that includes performers from all four corners of the globe. Joining Lin as solo violinist will be Gil Shaham, while Lynn Harrell will be teaming up with Jian Wang (王健) on cello. Pianists Barry Douglas and Helen Huang (黃海倫) will be tickling the ivories during the festival and the Guarnerri String Quartet, a New York-based multinational ensemble, International Sejong Soloists and Taiwan's very own Festival Orchestra (節慶管絃樂團) will be providing the backbone of the festival's concerts.
Taking to the podium to conduct the performers will be this year's special guest, Muhai Tang (湯沐海), conductor of the China Symphony Orchestra (中國交響樂團).
Given the talents of the many guests invited to participate in the festival, the event's programs promises to offer classical music buffs a genuine smorgasbord of sounds, as it has in years past.
Works by well known composers such as Beethoven, Handel, Brahms, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Grieg, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and Rachmaninov are all on the agenda during the week-long festival.
This year's festival kicks off next Friday with a concert entitled The Night of Chamber Music at the Hsinchu Performance Hall (新竹市立演藝廳) that will see the University of Maryland's quartet-in-residence, the Guarnerri String Quartet, with guest soloist Lin Cho-liang on violin and Lynn Harrell on cello. The concert will also be broadcast live by Hsinchu-based radio station, IC之音 FM97.5.
For your information:
Tickets for festival performances differ depending on the venue, but all are available at ERA ticketing outlets nationwide. For a full festival schedule, visit the Web site at http://www.mna.com.tw, or for further information call Management of New Arts (牛耳藝術) at (02) 2702-5131.
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
This year’s Miss Universe in Thailand has been marred by ugly drama, with allegations of an insult to a beauty queen’s intellect, a walkout by pageant contestants and a tearful tantrum by the host. More than 120 women from across the world have gathered in Thailand, vying to be crowned Miss Universe in a contest considered one of the “big four” of global beauty pageants. But the runup has been dominated by the off-stage antics of the coiffed contestants and their Thai hosts, escalating into a feminist firestorm drawing the attention of Mexico’s president. On Tuesday, Mexican delegate Fatima Bosch staged a
Taiwan can often feel woefully behind on global trends, from fashion to food, and influences can sometimes feel like the last on the metaphorical bandwagon. In the West, suddenly every burger is being smashed and honey has become “hot” and we’re all drinking orange wine. But it took a good while for a smash burger in Taipei to come across my radar. For the uninitiated, a smash burger is, well, a normal burger patty but smashed flat. Originally, I didn’t understand. Surely the best part of a burger is the thick patty with all the juiciness of the beef, the
Would you eat lab-grown chocolate? I requested a sample from California Cultured, a Sacramento-based company. Its chocolate, not yet commercially available, is made with techniques that have previously been used to synthesize other bioactive products like certain plant-derived pharmaceuticals for commercial sale. A few days later, it arrives. The morsel, barely bigger than a coffee bean, is supposed to be the flavor equivalent of a 70 percent to 80 percent dark chocolate. I tear open its sealed packet and a chocolatey aroma escapes — so far, so good. I pop it in my mouth. Slightly waxy and distinctly bitter, it boasts those bright,
RSS