At the invitation of Australian New Goldberg Orchestra (ANGO), the UIC Orchestra participated in the ‘Sino-Australian Youth Symphony Night’ music performance along with ANGO and Zhuhai No.1 Middle School Symphony Orchestra at the Zhuhai Grand Theatre to bring together a musical feast of Chinese and Western culture on the evening of 21 December.
UIC's Division of Culture and Creativity (DCC) Lecturer Mr Stephen Lik Hin Lam was the conductor for the UIC Orchestra’s performance as they kicked off the concert. They first brought to the audience the ‘Jasmine Flower’ arranged for orchestra by He Fang. This melodious folk song shows the unique charm of traditional Chinese folk songs, letting everyone enjoy the beautiful atmosphere of the evening.
Then, staff and students brought some excerpts from the musical ‘Les Miserables’ composed by Claude-Michel Schoenberg to the audience. The audience followed the tragic, tense, as well as gentle music to experience and understand the protagonist's twisted life.
The following performance was Zhuhai No.1 Middle School Symphony Orchestra. They performed the symphony from 'The Avengers', which was composed by Alan Silvestri in addition to several other pieces.
ANGO concluded the concert with an impressive performance. Conducted by Artistic Director Thaddeus Huang, an Australian-Chinese conductor based in Melbourne, ANGO performed a concerto was divided into four chapters-‘Yellow Boatman's Song’, ‘Ode to the Yellow River’, ‘Angry of the Yellow River’ and ‘Protecting the Yellow River’.
Then they performced another piece to tell the story of the Chinese coming to Australia to start a business and their offspring's struggle and growth in Australia. Finally, the orchestra also performed a repertoire for the audience.
ANGO is Melbourne’s premier high-performing, independent, not-for-profit cultural youth ensemble.
UIC’s Orchestra (UICO) was established in 2011 and is committed to "Educating the whole person with love and music". The members of the orchestra come from different academic divisions and programmes within UIC. They performed in three major Polish cities to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Poland in 2015. After the orchestra returned back to China, they were invited to hold a special concert for the citizens of Zhuhai, which opened the curtain of the Zhuhai Civic Culture Festival.
Reporter: Samuel Burgess
Photographer: Cai Yueqing (Y1, ACCT), Liang Tianshi (Y4, AE), Cindy Lu (FPECO)
Editors: Deen He, Robert Runnels (DCC)
(from MPRO, with thanks to the ELC)
