Visiting artists from China wow a packed Adam Concert Room
Two extraordinary musicians from Hangzhou visited NZSM at the end of July for a special concert crossing traditions and cultures.
Professor Du Rusong (bamboo flute and xiao) and Lecturer Liu Le (guzheng) are resident artists at the Chinese Instrument Department of Zhejiang Conservatory of Music. They were joined on their visit by composer, Professor Nalin Shen, who studied with Jack Body in New Zealand and completed his PhD here.
On 31 July they gave a concert 'China Crossing', of traditional and contemporary Chinese music in the Adam Concert Room. The programme included traditional music for flute and ghuzeng, and compositions by NZSM students Jack Caleffi, Evangelina Telfar, Joe Gorman (supervised by John Psathas and Nalin Shen).
The Te Kōkī Trio (Jian Liu, piano; Martin Riseley, violin; Inbal Meggido, cello) joined the musicians for a performance of Nalin Shen’s work Meng Yuan for guzheng, piano, violin, and cello.
The Adam Concert Room was packed with an attentive audience made up of families, students, musicians and scholars. Senior representatives from the Chinese Embassy and Confucius Institute were also in attendance. We were particularly delighted to welcome a large and enthusiastic group of Chinese guests. Traditional and contemporary work, student compositions, and the astonishingly dynamic final creation of a real cultural and historical "crossing" by Nalin Shen, were vigorously applauded.
The concert was kindly sponsored by the Confucius Institute at Victoria University of Wellington and Zhejiang Conservatory of Music.