Celebrate the holiday season with an enchanting program of new music from the Bard Chinese Ensemble!
This year’s program flows like a river of imagination — from the mist-veiled bridges of Jiagnan to the shadowed realm of spirits and demons, reimagined through the lens of a German composer. One work invites the audience to experience three Asian fruits, transforming taste into sound, while the finale — essentially a Chinese La Mer — evokes the many facets of China’s rivers. Through these journeys, tradition breathes anew: in the poetry of nature, the pulse of myth, the colors and fragrances of tropical fruit, and the eternal song of flowing water.
Come enjoy the sensational sounds of this large ensemble featuring a unique blend of Chinese and Western instruments. Ensemble music director Shutong Li conducts.
FREE and open to the public.
Program
Liu Xijin
Snow over the Broken Bridge dizi concerto 雪意断桥
Minghui Mia Wu, dizi
Enjott Schneider
Secrets of the Devil and the Soul concerto for sheng, Mvts. II, IV 魔鬼与灵魂的秘密
Hengjian Zhang, sheng
Chen Siang
”Interstellar” 星际
Kong Su Leong
”Ispirazione II” 捕风掠影 II
Tang Jianping
The River Flows like a Song Mvt. 3 Ode to Rivers, Lakes, and Seas 长河如歌
Minghui Mia Wu, dizi
Hengjian Zhang, sheng
ABOUT THE BARD CHINESE ENSEMBLE
The Bard Chinese Ensemble is the Bard Conservatory’s large mixed ensemble of Chinese and Western instrument players. Every year the instrumentation changes so that students of various different Western instruments have the opportunity to experience the unique technical and artistic challenges of playing alongside traditional Chinese instruments.
Each performance features specially arranged music from China. In addition to re-arranging traditional works from the Chinese orchestral repertoire, Music Director Shutong Li works with contemporary living composers to adapt new works to the ensemble’s unique instrumentation, offering audiences the opportunity to hear some of the finest and least often performed orchestral music of our time.
Ensemble photos by Aya Rebai.