Dutch pianist Mike del Ferro plays a live show of experimental jazz tonight in Taipei, followed by a masterclass series for professionals and novices tomorrow.
Del Ferro is a touring pianist and winner of the 1989 Rotterdam Jazz Piano Competition and Soloist Prize in the Europe Jazz Contest in Brussels. Tonight at the Riverside Music Cafe (河岸留言音樂藝文咖啡), he plays jazz-inflected compositions with Taiwanese jazz violinist Hsieh Chi-pin (謝啟彬), bassist Lin Hou-chin (林后進) and percussionist Lin Wen-yu (林文昱).
“A lot of the program is his original compositions — you can tell it’s jazz but it also reflects influences from around the world,” Hsieh said.
Photo courtesy: TIJEPA Taipei Jazz
Del Ferro has toured over 110 countries, where he has studied local music cultures and adapted jazz improvisation to structures of Asian, South American and African traditional music.
The next day, Del Ferro teaches four two-hour master classes with help from Hsieh and other musicians of the Taipei International Jazz Education & Promotion Association (台北市國際爵士樂教育推廣協會). Starting from 10am, he will be offering clinics on jazzing up classical music, conducting a jazz ensemble, controlling color and style on an electronic keyboard and the mechanics of Brazilian music. Capped at 30 participants, each class is conducted in English with Chinese interpretation and open to music teachers, concert professionals as well as novices, Hsieh said.
“You don’t really have to play an instrument to be interested in the language of Brazilian music,” he added.
■ Mike Del Ferro plays starting 9pm at the Riverside Music Cafe (河岸留言音樂藝文咖啡), B1, 2, Ln 244, Roosevelt Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路三段 244巷2 號B1樓). Tickets are NT$500, available at the door or at tickets.books.com.tw
■ Two-hour workshops start tomorrow at 10am at TIJEPA Taipei Jazz (爵士原力基地) at B1, 30, Ln 595, Bei-an Rd, Taipei City (台北市北安路 595巷30號B1). To register, call (02) 2544-8740 or visit www.accupass.com/go/mikedelferro. Admission per workshop: NT$1,200.
Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 Over a breakfast of soymilk and fried dough costing less than NT$400, seven officials and engineers agreed on a NT$400 million plan — unaware that it would mark the beginning of Taiwan’s semiconductor empire. It was a cold February morning in 1974. Gathered at the unassuming shop were Economics minister Sun Yun-hsuan (孫運璿), director-general of Transportation and Communications Kao Yu-shu (高玉樹), Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) president Wang Chao-chen (王兆振), Telecommunications Laboratories director Kang Pao-huang (康寶煌), Executive Yuan secretary-general Fei Hua (費驊), director-general of Telecommunications Fang Hsien-chi (方賢齊) and Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Laboratories director Pan
The consensus on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair race is that Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) ran a populist, ideological back-to-basics campaign and soundly defeated former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), the candidate backed by the big institutional players. Cheng tapped into a wave of popular enthusiasm within the KMT, while the institutional players’ get-out-the-vote abilities fell flat, suggesting their power has weakened significantly. Yet, a closer look at the race paints a more complicated picture, raising questions about some analysts’ conclusions, including my own. TURNOUT Here is a surprising statistic: Turnout was 130,678, or 39.46 percent of the 331,145 eligible party
The classic warmth of a good old-fashioned izakaya beckons you in, all cozy nooks and dark wood finishes, as tables order a third round and waiters sling tapas-sized bites and assorted — sometimes unidentifiable — skewered meats. But there’s a romantic hush about this Ximending (西門町) hotspot, with cocktails savored, plating elegant and never rushed and daters and diners lit by candlelight and chandelier. Each chair is mismatched and the assorted tables appear to be the fanciest picks from a nearby flea market. A naked sewing mannequin stands in a dimly lit corner, adorned with antique mirrors and draped foliage
The election of Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) as chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) marked a triumphant return of pride in the “Chinese” in the party name. Cheng wants Taiwanese to be proud to call themselves Chinese again. The unambiguous winner was a return to the KMT ideology that formed in the early 2000s under then chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) put into practice as far as he could, until ultimately thwarted by hundreds of thousands of protestors thronging the streets in what became known as the Sunflower movement in 2014. Cheng is an unambiguous Chinese ethnonationalist,
RSS