The Paper's reporter Liao Yang
Zheng Xiaoying was the first female conductor of symphony in China and the first Chinese conductor to appear on the podium of foreign opera houses.
On December 31st, at the age of 91, she will come to Poly Shanghai City Theatre to join hands with the Xiamen Song and Dance Theater Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Sunshine Choir and Shanghai Female Journalist Choir to play the New Year Symphony Poems.
Zheng Xiaoying Image source: Zheng Xiaoying blog
At the performance site, in addition to performing excerpts from operas such as "La Traviata", "Carmen", "Happy Widow", "Blue Danube", "Dansong Dance", "Love Round Dance" and other cheerful dance music, the orchestra will also spend a large amount of time interpreting the symphonic poem "Tulou Echo".
Zheng Xiaoying was born in Yongding, Fujian Province, of Hakka family. She studied at the Central Conservatory of Music, studied at the Moscow State Conservatory of Music in the USSR, and served as chief conductor of the Central Opera House and head of the conducting department of the Central Conservatory of Music.
In 1997, Zheng Xiaoying left the Central Opera House and went south to Xiamen to form the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra and served as artistic director.
In Xiamen, Zheng Xiaoying felt that the happiest thing was to be able to make an orchestra according to her artistic ideals. Under her leadership, the orchestra used to rehearse for 5 hours a day and launch a new program every week, ranging from classicism to romanticism, modernism, impressionism, and Chinese works.
In Xiamen, Zheng Xiaoying also maintains a close partnership with the Xiamen Song and Dance Theatre Symphony Orchestra, another of the city's musical icons, founded in 1996.
At the beginning of its establishment, the troupe played the opera "Ami Girl" and was awarded the "Wenhua Award" by the Ministry of Culture. While performing a large number of Western works, the orchestra also pays attention to the creation and promotion of Chinese works, creating and performing the symphonic Nanyin "Chen Sanwuniang" and the first symphonic work named after the city in China, "Xiamen Symphony".
On New Year's Day 1998, the orchestra cooperated with conductor Han Zhongjie to hold the first New Year's Concert in Xiamen, this time, the orchestra will go north and spend a cross-Chinese New Year's Eve in Shanghai.
The symphonic poem "Tulou Echoes" is the highlight of the cross-Chinese New Year's Eve, composed by Liu Xiang, with five movements and about 37 minutes long.
The work uses the material of the Minxi Mountain Song as the musical tone, showing the Hakka people fleeing from the Central Plains to the south and their journey of living together and working together to build a new home (Hakka Tulou), and also showing the Tulou sentiments of Hakka children in foreign countries who miss their hometown.
Zheng Xiaoying first conducted this work in November 2000, at the Longyan Gymnasium, more than 3,000 spectators were hakka relatives, "In a mountain gymnasium that had never heard a symphony, the audience not only sat down, but also listened to the gods, and finally clapped in unison with my conductor's baton, and sang a Hakka mountain song, and the composer pushed the concert to a climax in such a simple and easy way." ”
Zheng Xiaoying recalls that China's large-scale musical works were sensational successes at the time of their premiere, which was rare in her conducting career, and she called Liu Yong to share the joy of getting "Zhiyin" with him.
"Liu Xiang poured out so many strong feelings for Western Fujian and Hakka that he had accumulated in his soul since his childhood, and also properly integrated modern composition techniques and native forms of leaf blowing and Hakka mountain songs, combining the things of the ancestors with modern techniques, which is a great contribution to the cause of symphony in China." She said.
Every time she goes to a place to tour, Zheng Xiaoying will invite the local choir to interpret the Hakka chorus and Hakka mountain songs in the song, and the musicians of Japan, Italy, France, Germany and other countries have sung in Hakka and sung very energetically. This time in Shanghai, Zheng Xiaoying went into the countryside and invited the Shanghai Sunshine Choir and the Shanghai Female Journalist Choir to join.
Shanghai Ballet "Swan Lake"
In December, following the atmosphere of retiring the old and welcoming the new, Poly Shanghai City Theatre will also welcome the deluxe version of "Swan Lake" by Shanghai Ballet.
This edition of Swan Lake was created by derek Dean, former artistic director of the British National Ballet. In addition to the "love dance" of the white swan and the prince, the lively and cheerful "four little swan dance", and the "black swan double dance" representing the peak of classical ballet technology, the most eye-catching thing in this edition is the "Swan Ocean" composed of 48 white swans.
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia
Proofreader: Shi Gong