By Gerrye Wong | Special to AsianWeek
The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) will ring in the Year of the Ram with a special Chinese New Year Celebration concert Sunday, Feb. 2, at 2 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall.
Following the sold-out popularity of last year’s new year concert, SFS chairperson Margaret Liu Collins says this performance will once again bring together traditional and contemporary Chinese music, performed by Chinese artists. Conducted by popular SFS conductor-in-residence Edwin Outwater, the festive program features Grammy-nominated erhu (Chinese violin) player Jiebing Chen, the Crystal Children’s Choir, soprano Man Hua Gao and a work by local composer Gang Situ.
Prior to the concert will be many activities for all ages in the Davies lobby. This pre-show will feature tables of Chinese New Year’s food treats, Chinese crafts tables, lion dancers, roaming magicians, fortune-tellers and even some preview music.
This year, Collins invites special concert package holders to a post-concert private reception, held in the Green Room of the War Memorial building featuring a dim sum buffet and entertainment by chamber ensembles with traditional Chinese instruments.
Headlining the Chinese New Year concert for the first time is the Crystal Children’s Choir, which has had over 600 choristers since its founding in 1994. Directed by Karl Chang and Jenny Chiang, who oversee 14 classes of children and rehearsals weekly, the choir is dedicated to contributing to Chinese American children’s musical education by blending the best of Eastern and Western music.
A piece from Shanghai-born composer Gang Situ, will feature a duet with Jiebing Chen on erhu and Nadya Tichman on violin. Known for his orchestra and dance pieces, which have been performed in China, Europe and the United States, Situ premiered his San Francisco Suite, a work made possible by a commissioning award from the San Francisco Arts Commission, in 1997.
Born into a family of musicians in Shanghai in 1954, Situ’s early life pattern was inevitable. He became a musician and during the Cultural Revolution, he was “reeducated” about the evils of Western music. In 1971, he was sent to the countryside to be “reeducated” as a farmer for four years. He recalls that while living in poverty in the countryside, one person had a tape of David Ostrakh playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
“During those four years, I must have listened to it at least 100 times. While living under harsh conditions, I remember vividly thinking how the music carried you to a better other world to escape how we were living in those times,” Situ remembers.
Since arriving in San Francisco as a student in 1985, he has been the recipient of a Meet the Composer New Residencies grant that partnered him with arts and community organizations. The grant funded his piece Common Ground, created in collaboration with Dimensions Dance Theater and the Lily Cai Dance Company. In 1996 Situ was named the Honored Festival Composer by the 1996 Shanghai International Music Festival. Situ has composed new scores for the Lily Cai Dance Company in collaboration with the Alexander String Quartet, Dimensions Dance Theater and the New Century Chamber Orchestra.
The beautiful Jiebing Chen, considered by many to be one of the foremost erhu virtuosos in the world, returns from a highly acclaimed performance in the 2002 SFS Chinese New Year concert. Following graduation from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she won first prize in the National Competition of Traditional Instructions in Beijing and was officially recognized as a “National First Rank Performing Artist,” the highest honor accorded to artists by the Chinese Government. Since arriving in the United States in 1989, Jiebing has performed as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony and many other orchestras, and has more than 20 albums available internationally.
“Chinese New Year is always a time of traditions, celebration and family,” said Liu Collins. “The symphony takes great pride in offering an affordable concert that allows the entire family to celebrate these traditions in a delightfully original blend of East and West, with a colorful afternoon that helps raise funds for the symphony’s many wonderful educational programs to bring music to our schools and enrich the entire community.”
The San Francisco Symphony Chinese New Year Celebration concert will be held Sunday, Feb. 2 at the Davis Symphony Hall. Concert tickets with pre-concert activities are $16 to $60.Ticket packages are available through SFS ticket services, by calling the Volunteer Council Office at 415-503-5500 or the box office at 415-864-6000. For more information go to www.sfsymphony.org.
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