Write Your Own Chinese Opera 101

Write Your Own Chinese Opera 101

A Public Workshop with Composer Alan Lau and Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble Director Jirong Huang

Saturday, April 22, 2017, 2:00 pm

Chinese Cultural Centre Museum (555 Columbia St., Vancouver)

Free admission. All welcome. No registration required.

Limited Seating. First-come, first-served.

 

Vancouver Chinese Instrumental Music Society presents Write Your Own Chinese Opera 101, an interactive public workshop on Chinese opera, with Composer Alan Lau and Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble Director Jirong Huang. Participants will experience the life of an ancient Chinese literati through interactive activities based on language tones, calligraphy, poetry and lyric writing, and explore the multi-faceted relationship between music and other Chinese art forms. The workshop will be held on Saturday, April 22, 2017 at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum.

The workshop will survey the development of the Chinese operatic tradition, from Yuan dynasty opera of the 13th century, to kunqu opera during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the birth of Beijing Opera in the late 1700s. Participants will be able to gain hands-on experience with calligraphy, Chinese language tones, and even designing their very own simple poetry and opera skits in an informal setting.

The Write Your Own Chinese Opera 101 workshop is presented as part of the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble’s upcoming concert Future in Past. The concert program includes an original piece by Composer Alan Lau, which he believes to be the first chamber opera written in Vancouver by a Chinese-Canadian. Future in Past will be held on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at the Norman Rothstein Theatre. More information can be found on the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble’s website: vancouverchinesemusic.ca

Composer, painter, independent scholar Alan Lau collaborated with Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble on several projects including Autumn Flight (2014) and Sino-Electric Explorations (2015). His artistic involvements include theme and background music for the Interwoven Stories exhibition (2015), presenter/facilitator for the Greeting Fluency Initiative (2010), and curatorial work for a series of musical instrument exhibition/installation projects with the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and the UBC Asian Library (2012-15). The UBC Music Composition and Visual Arts graduate is currently on the editorial board of the journal, Asian Musicology. He is the co-author/assistant editor of international research projects, including Qupai in Chinese Music (Routledge, 2016) and The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Music.

Jirong Huang is the founder and artistic director of the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble, the first professional Chinese group formed in Canada. The Shanghai Conservatory of Music graduate has been recognized in China for his performance on traditional instruments and has won many awards around the world. He plays erhu (Chinese violin) and other bowstring instruments as well as composes and arranges music.