Aug 20, 2009
Blown away by the music
There was a concert of classical Chinese music at the Yilan High School (right behind our apartment complex), featuring the high school’s alumni orchestra and a local professional orchestra. Tickets were only NT$100 (about US$3), so I wasn’t expecting much. Several ETAs also expressed interest in the concert, so Stacy bought a bunch of tickets, and we all walked over to the high school together.
The orchestra played some modern pieces, and some traditional pieces with a modern flavor. We were very impressed with the quality of the orchestra. It was far from an amateur performance. In the second part, they played a 4-movement piece that featured a flute soloist, and a 3-movement piece that featured a plucked string instrument called a pipa çµç¶ that looks like this:
The ETAs were very impressed with the concert as well. I thought it was perhaps the best live Chinese music I’ve ever heard. It was definitely the best three bucks I’ve spent in a long time.
Wow, I would have loved to hear that.