Leading players with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra perform chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn and Nikolai Tcherepnin as well as arrangements of traditional music from Taiwan. The chamber group features Roger Chih-I Chiang, the orchestra’s concertmaster, along with associate concertmaster Ting-Hsuan Hu, principal cellist Cheng-Hsuan Chien, and principal horn Chi-Yang Wang. They are joined by other orchestra members on violin, viola, double bass, bass clarinet, and horn. The complete program features Mendelssohn’s luscious Octet for Strings, op. 20 (1825) and Tcherepnin’s rarely heard Six Pieces for Four French Horns (1910). Completing the program are Peach Blossom Ferry Crossing (a Taiwanese folk song arranged for string quartet by Shiuan Chang); the first movement from Borodin’s String Quartet no. 2; God Drops Water (a Hakka folk song arranged for electric piano, bass clarinet, and double bass by Shiuan Chang); Yu-Hsien Teng: The Torment of a Flower (a much-beloved Taiwanese piece arranged for string quartet by Wei-Chieh Jay Lin); and Pastel Song (Taiwan aboriginal music arranged for string quintet by Shiuan Chang). This performance is presented in cooperation with Washington Performing Arts and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. |