Carnegie Hall's 'Ancient Paths, Modern Voices' Festival Celebrates Chinese Culture in Orange County

Lang Lang, Wu Man, The Shanghai Symphony and Quentin Shin Featured at Carnegie's West Coast Festival

By Leslie Feibleman

The Philharmonic Society of Orange County will present the West Coast edition of a bicoastal Carnegie Hall festival paying tribute to China's diverse and vibrant culture and its influence around the world.  Marking the first time that Carnegie Hall's live festival programming will be offered to audiences outside New York City, Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture will take place from October 11 to November 24, 2009, at Orange County Performing Arts Center, a part of Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and Southern California artistic partners including South Coast Repertory, Orange County Museum of Art, the Bowers Museum, the Orange County Film Society and South Coast Plaza. The festival in New York City will be presented from October 21 to November 10, 2009, at Carnegie Hall and New York City partner institutions. 

The first festival presented under the partnership between Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Ancient Paths, Modern Voices will feature performances by leading international musicians, including some artists and ensembles traveling outside China for the first time.  In Southern California, the festival will include Western symphonic and chamber music influenced by Chinese culture, traditional folk music and contemporary music as well as traditional marionette theater, film screenings, art exhibitions and much more.

"The immemorial culture of China has made itself felt throughout the world for many centuries-but its influence today is arguably more widespread, and more directly present, than at any other time in history," stated Dean Corey, President and Artistic Director of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. "That is the source of the richness and excitement of Ancient Paths, Modern Voices. The festival presents extraordinary expressions of the most venerable Chinese artistic traditions, then brings them into the here and now. This is Chinese culture in all its variety, from the deepest roots to the greenest branches."

Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture is presented in Southern California with the support of South Coast Plaza and The Segerstrom Foundation. Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture is made possible by a leadership gift from Henry R. Kravis in honor of his wife, Marie-Josée.

"By partnering with Carnegie Hall and other prominent institutions, Segerstrom Center for the Arts achieves a new level of excellence in serving Southern California, and reaching out as never before on the international stage," stated Henry Segerstrom, Managing Partner of South Coast Plaza, presenting sponsor. "I am delighted that this vibrant celebration of Chinese culture presented by Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County will be able to enrich and enliven the experience of audiences on both coasts."

Ancient Paths, Modern Voices Programming in California

Over the course of six weeks, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County's musical offerings will include performances by a number of leading Chinese musicians that highlight different musical aspects of Chinese culture.  The West Coast festival will launch with a series of performances by the Quanzhou Marionette Theater at the Samueli Theater on October 16 and 17.  With song, musical accompaniment, and sophisticated storytelling drawn from Chinese folk tales, the troupe from the Fujian Province in Southern China presents this ancient performance tradition, known as a regional form of Peking opera.

Philharmonic Society festival presentations will include Musical Journeys through China, a program curated by pipa player Wu Man that explores Chinese instrumental folk music traditions and features an ensemble of talented artists from China: the Li Family Daoist Band and Zhang Family Band; Lang Lang and Friends, a program featuring pianist Lang Lang performing chamber music with young emerging Chinese musicians including erhu player Guo Gan, tenor GeQun Wang, cellist Hai-Ye Ni, violinist Zhu Dan, and pianist Marc Yu; and the Colburn Orchestra led by conductor Yehuda Gilad performing Tan Dun's Out of Peking Opera (Violin Concerto No. 1) with violinist Cho-Liang Lin.

The Philharmonic Society's celebration of Chinese culture will conclude on November 24 with a performance by pianist Yuja Wang and the Shanghai Symphony led by conductor Long Yu.  The oldest symphonic ensemble in China, the Shanghai Symphony was founded in 1879, and its own history traces the evolution of symphonic music itself in China. The program will feature Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Chen Qigang's Iris dévoilée - a scenic cantata, which features three traditional Chinese instruments: pipa, erhu, and zheng.

Additional highlights by partner institutions will include a staged reading of Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by acclaimed Chinese author Adeline Yen Mah presented by South Coast Repertory, and a separate meet-the-author event with Yen Mah held in honor of her latest work CHINA: A Land of Dragons and Emperors; the West Coast premiere of the Chinese epic adventure film, Red Cliff, followed by a Q&A with director John Woo, presented by the Orange County Film Society; a screening of Academy Award-winning From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, a 1980 documentary film about Western culture breaking into China, at the Bowers Museum; a panel discussion moderated by University of California Humanities Research Institute Director David Theo Goldberg, with University of California at Irvine Professor Ackbar Abbas, Achille Mbembe of the University of California at Irvine and the University of Witwatersrand,  "Class of 1978" composer Liu Sola and artist Liu Dan on Designing China, a seminar in experimental critical theory hosted in Shanghai this summer; and an educational program, Ancient Grooves meets Ancient China, offering sixth-grade students the chance to see an exciting and versatile ensemble of master musicians perform on ancient Chinese instruments.

Exhibitions presented as part of Ancient Paths, Modern Voices will include the Orange County Museum of Art's exhibition Video Work by Gao Shiqiang and Chen Qiulin, which will pair pieces by contemporary Chinese artists Gao Shiqiang (born in Shandong, 1971) and Chen Qiulin (born in Hubei, 1975), whose artistic visions capture the collision of tradition and modernity in China in distinct ways; and Christian Dior Presents the Photography of Quentin Shih, the U.S. premiere of a capsule exhibition featuring the work of celebrated Beijing-based fashion photographer Quentin Shih (born in China, 1975) and presented by South Coast Plaza in partnership with Christian Dior. 

South Coast Plaza will host Ping Pong Diplomacy Rematch, a series of ping pong tournaments comprised of youth and professional table tennis competitions. Presented in collaboration with the Richard Nixon Foundation at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum to celebrate Ping Pong Diplomacy-the exchange of ping pong players from the United States and People's Republic of China in the 1970s which resulted in a thaw in Sino-American relations-the program also will feature archival photographs and ephemera from the original matches and the subsequent visit of Richard Nixon to Beijing.  Additional events at South Coast Plaza will include traditional ribbon dance routines, performances on ancient instruments, and demonstrations of Tai Chi and Kung Fu techniques, presented by the South Coast Chinese Cultural Association and the Irvine Chinese School.

Ticket Information
Single tickets for Ancient Paths, Modern Voices performances and events in Costa Mesa are now on sale.
For ticket information and programming updates, please visit www.philharmonicsociety.org/chinafestival.

About the Philharmonic Society of Orange County
Founded in 1954, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County is Orange County's oldest and most recognized music organization, presenting the world's most acclaimed symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, performing organizations and artists. A catalyst for cultural and educational development throughout its region, the Philharmonic Society is a key resident company in the Orange County Performing Arts Center's Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

About Carnegie Hall
For more than a century, New York City's Carnegie Hall has set the international standard for excellence in music.  Carnegie Hall today presents close to 200 performances by the world's finest artists each season on its three great stages-the renowned Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, intimate Weill Recital Hall, and innovative Zankel Hall-with offerings ranging from orchestral concerts, chamber music, and solo recitals to jazz, world, and popular music.  The venue is also home to over 500 independently produced events each year.  Through the work of The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, wide-reaching music education programs serve people in the New York City metropolitan region, across the United States, and around the world, playing a central role in Carnegie Hall's commitment to making great music accessible to as many people as possible.  For more information, please visit www.carnegiehall.org.

About Segerstrom Center for the Arts
The roots of Segerstrom Center for the Arts date back to 1974 when South Coast Plaza, a Segerstrom family partnership, donated land in Costa Mesa, California, to an outstanding young theater company, South Coast Repertory (SCR), for construction of a new home.  Encouraged by the meteoric success of SCR in the 1970s and early 1980s, South Coast Plaza gifted a 5-acre site adjacent to SCR to an embryonic community cultural group, Orange County Music Center (later renamed Orange County Performing Arts Center -- OCPAC), for construction of the 3,000 seat multi-purpose Segerstrom Hall. 

The outgrowth of these initiatives was the establishment of Segerstrom Center for the Arts, as officially announced in 1999 with a new gift of six acres of land. Set aside by the donors for the creation of a multidisciplinary arts center, the land was to be used for a major expansion of South Coast Repertory, the construction of a world-class concert hall and the development of a distinguished visual arts facility.  These six acres have now become the site of the expanded South Coast Repertory, which opened in 2002; the beautiful 2,000-seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, designed by Cesar Pelli, which opened in 2006; an arts plaza, featuring the Richard Serra sculpture Connector; and a parcel of 1.64 acres for the future home of the Orange County Museum of Art, which is being designed by Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis and is scheduled to open in 2016.

About South Coast Plaza
South Coast Plaza is Southern California's ultimate shopping experience with over 280 boutiques and department stores attracting visitors from around the world.  It is recognized as one of the nation's most luxurious shopping destinations for fashion, jewelry, home furnishings, spa services, and dining.  South Coast Plaza is located in Orange County, California within minutes of Southern California's finest beaches, museums, theme parks, and golf courses, and is adjacent to the world-renowned Segerstrom Center for the Arts.  For more information, visit www.southcoastplaza.com or telephone (800) 782-8888.

 

 

 

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