Taiwan, we learned this week, is the "flute capital of the world," and to celebrate this achievement there is a festival dedicated to this wind instrument.
Four virtuoso flautists from Canada, Hungary, Switzerland and Japan have joined forces with local talents and two Chinese musicians for the near weeklong International Flute Festival, dubbed "Floating in Spring."
It began on Wednesday with a performance from Shanghai's He Shengqi (
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
In between there are 10 scheduled concerts to be held in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, performed by the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra and the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra.
At a press conference earlier in the week, conductor, composer and flautist Robert Aitken boosted the event by saying it was impeccably organized.
"This must be the flute capital of the world. There is no other country where the flute is more successful or a better place to hold a flute concert," he said.
Asked to explain his comment, Aitken said Taiwan treated flautists well.
"It has to be something to do with heritage [the world's oldest playable flute was found in China and is said to be 9,000 years old]. Also, the peer pressure to perform and the number of players here is incredible, so there is a lot of competition and knowledge of the instrument," Aitken said.
"I agree," said Fan Man-nong (
"In our middle-school music classes the flute and woodwind instruments are introduced to around 100,000 children every year. This has been happening for 40 years. Just look at the the number of marching bands we have."
Tonight, Andras Adorjan will give a flute recital in Taichung and Robert Aitken will play works from Franz Shubert and Johann Sebastian Bach, among others, at the Novel Hall in Taipei.
Tomorrow there will be an afternoon concert from the Flute Chamber Ensemble Enchantment at the Novel Hall, with Shigenori Kudo playing at the same venue in the evening.
The Concert of Flute Virtuosos will take place Sunday afternoon and New Force in Flute happens in the evening. There will also be a Mozart Memorial Concert in Kaohsiung starring Peter-Lukas Graf.
Performances in Taipei with Adorjan on Monday and Graf on Tuesday will end the festival.
Tickets are from NT$300 to NT$2,000. There will also be seminars and master classes from the visiting musicians. For further information about these and other related events call New Aspect on (02) 2709 3788 or visit www.newaspect.org.tw. Tickets can be purchased through www.artsticket.com.tw, or call (02) 3393 9888.
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
Yesterday, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominated legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) as their Taipei mayoral candidate, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) put their stamp of approval on Wei Ping-cheng (魏平政) as their candidate for Changhua County commissioner and former legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has begun the process to also run in Changhua, though she has not yet been formally nominated. All three news items are bizarre. The DPP has struggled with settling on a Taipei nominee. The only candidate who declared interest was Enoch Wu (吳怡農), but the party seemed determined to nominate anyone
What government project has expropriated the most land in Taiwan? According to local media reports, it is the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, eating 2,500 hectares of land in its first phase, with more to come. Forty thousand people are expected to be displaced by the project. Naturally that enormous land grab is generating powerful pushback. Last week Chen Chien-ho (陳健和), a local resident of Jhuwei Borough (竹圍) in Taoyuan City’s Dayuan District (大園) filed a petition for constitutional review of the project after losing his case at the Taipei Administrative Court. The Administrative Court found in favor of nine other local landowners, but
RSS