Li Delun Music Foundation presents its annual East Meets West New Year’s Concert of Favourite Classics with an intriguing addition to the program. The concert takes place on January 6.
Along with Strauss, Verdi and Beethoven, the performance will include a work linked to the Enlightenist art movement, with live painting — and audience members can join in the creative expression.
The Performers
Chinese-born conductor Dr. Jin Wang is now based in Austria. He has worked with more than 100 orchestras in Asia, Scandinavia and Europe, including the Swedish National Orchestra Gothenborg, Radio Symphony Berlin, Seoul Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, and China Philharmonic, among many others.
He was the first conductor born in China to become a General Music Director in Germany at the Würzburg Opera. He has been Artistic Director of the Haydn Symphony Orchestra Vienna since 2016.
Wang has composed the 2024 New Year’s Symphonic Dance to premiere at the concert. He’ll be conducting the Toronto Festival Orchestra, the Yangtze River Performing Arts, and the Toronto Tsinghua Alumni Performing Arts Group.
Eighteen-year-old Toronto native Kevin Wang is the piano soloist. Kevin was a semi-finalist of the 2022 OSM Competition, where he was the youngest competitor. Prior to that, he was a finalist at the Kaufman International Youth Music Competition in New York where he was awarded the Best Performance of a Romantic Piece.
Artist Jin Zuo 左晋 specializes in contemporary oil and acrylic paintings on canvas. He won his first painting competition in his native China at the age of 19. He pursued art studies at the China Central Academy of Arts while also working in the animation department of a television station.
He emigrated to Canada with his family in 2012, where he founded the C9 ART Gallery, and continues to work. His paintings are held in many private collections, as well as appearing in published works.
The Program
- Overture to “Die Fledermaus” by Johann Strauss II 歌劇《蝙蝠》序曲
- “Thunder and Lightning” Polka by Johann Strauss II 雷电波尔卡
- Streams of Sorrow by An-lun Huang 江河水 黃安倫
- Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor, K. 466, I. Allegro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart d小調鋼琴協奏曲，第一乐章：快板
- Fantasia Synesthesia #1 by Solomon Hsu, Gloria Gao, Mary Chen, with Kemin Zhang & Bukaopu Chamber Ensemble 第一联觉通感随想曲
- Overture to “La forza del destino” by Giuseppe Verdi 歌剧《命運之力》序曲
- 2024 New Year’s Symphonic Dance by Jin Wang 2024新年交響舞曲
- Ohne Sorgen Polka schnell, Op. 271 by Josef Strauss 無憂無慮波爾卡
- Chorus 合唱 A You Raise Me Up by Rolf Løvland 你鼓舞了我 & B Tomorrow will be Better by Dayou Luo羅大佑 arr. by William Wu 胡偉立
- Ode to Joy 歡樂頌 by Ludwig van Beethoven / Poem by Friedrich Schiller 譯配 鄧映易
Fantasia Synesthesia #1 and Enlightenism
The Enlightenist movement aims to make an artist out of everyone, and to encourage and promote creating art while connecting with like-minded people. The movement believes that contemporary art can have a transformative power and become a universal experience.
Concert organizers met Zuo Jin at Art Toronto, and were struck by both his paintings and his philosophy. They worked together to come up with a way to involve the audience as artistic collaborators.
Fantasia Synesthesia #1, nicknamed “Three Sounds and Ten Thousand Ways to Enlightenment” (三声万悟) is a reference to the 42nd chapter of The Book of the Way (or Dao De Jing 道德经) by Lao Tzu. It’s considered the very first musical composition of the Enlightenist movement, and its central premise is accepting the natural flow of life, including randomness.
Solomon Hsu, Gloria Gao, and Mary Chen were the highest bidders at a live auction, winning the right to select a musical note each to be incorporated into the thematic material of the composition. At the end of the auction, the piece was arranged and performed by the Bukaopu Ensemble, featuring cellist Rosalind Zhang and led by her brother, composer Kemin Zhang.
During the concert, artist Jin Zuo will create a painting in real time on stage while the chamber ensemble plays and improvises.
Audience members are encouraged to join in by drawing in their seats, using a blank page that’s been left in the concert program. (But — bring your own crayons or other drawing instrument.)
The resulting drawings can be submitted to the Li Delun Music Foundation during intermission, and they’ll be used as inspiration for another new piece of music that will be performed at a concert later this year.
Li Delun Music Foundation
The non-profit Li Delun Music Foundation was established in Toronto in 2002 with a goal of promoting cultural exchanges between East and West via music. The organization is named after Li Delun, a conductor who became renowned in his native China. Delun founded the first symphony orchestra in the People’s Republic of China, among many notable accomplishments.
Delun made it his life’s work to help Western classical music gain inroads in China. As such, he also championed the work of Chinese composers, and premiered many of their works, as well as introducing them to international audiences.
- Tickets and more information about the January 6 concert at the Meridian Arts Centre [HERE].
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