On Sunday, April 28th, the Swarthmore College Chinese Music Ensemble will hold its spring concert, performing traditional and contemporary music inspired by musical traditions from a variety of ethnic groups and regions across China and its Diaspora. Students will also perform on traditional Chinese instruments such as the guzheng (zither), erhu (bowed fiddle), pipa, (plucked lute) yangqin (hammered dulcimer), dizi (flute), and percussion. Both the students as well as the co-directors, Professor Lei Ouyang Bryant and Professor Guowei Wang have rehearsed every week as an ensemble and individually in preparation for this day.<\/p>\n
According to Professor Lei Ouyang Bryant the program lineup for this semester is \u201cdefinitely driven by the individual and collective talents of [the] particular group of students in the ensemble.\u201d At the beginning of each semester, Professor Bryant and Professor Wang assess the interests, experience, and abilities of the students and suggest pieces for them to practice during the semester and eventually perform near the end. However, nearly all of the students who performed in the Chinese Ensemble during the fall semester continued on this spring, so there was more room this semester to work on each student\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n
Some special features this semester include solos by Josephine Hung\u201919 on dizi (bamboo flute) and Shirley Liu\u201922 on guzheng (zither), and a small group of erhu students, Han Chen\u201922, Rebecca Lin\u201922, Faye Ma\u201920, and Jeffrey Zhou\u201919, with Daisy Lee\u201922 on ruan (lute). Liu says it is a \u201cgreat honor for [her] to perform the solo piece \u2018Dawn in Spring on the Snowy Mountain\u2019\u201d and is striving to \u201cpresent this piece at her best capacity this Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
If an audience member is familiar with Chinese music, Professor Bryant says that \u201cthere should be some recognizable pieces in [the] spring program to enjoy.\u201d However, for an audience member who is not familiar with Chinese music, the hope is for such people to \u201cenjoy the variety of pieces on the program,\u201d to \u201cunderstand what the individual instruments each sound like as well as how the ensemble sounds together,\u201d and to appreciate the fact that \u201cthough the instruments in the ensemble each carry different histories in, into, and around China, the modern Chinese orchestra is something that emerged in the nineteenth century.\u201d Audience members are encouraged to come and witness the Chinese Ensemble perform, even if they have attended the ensemble\u2019s recitals in previous semesters, to see \u201cdifferent students featured, a new repertoire, and a continued development of [the] Chinese Music Ensemble at Swarthmore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 28th, at Lang Concert Hall.<\/p>\n
Maria Consuelo de Dios ’21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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