When I asked Lu Shao-chia (呂紹嘉) over a year ago whether he’d be interested in becoming the new music director of Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) he said that he was extremely busy in Germany and that, if such an offer were made, he’d have a lot of things to consider. But last week he was announced as the heir to Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬) in exactly this position.
So presumably he’s thought and thought and finally decided that it’s possible. Chien himself spent half of every year away, also in Germany, and it seems likely that some such provision has also been made in Lu’s contract. But the NSO administration understandably hasn’t made any such details public.
“The musicians are happy with this choice,” I was told. “He’s the natural successor to Chien since they are the only two local conductors who possess the skills required for the job. Their styles are very different, though.
“They do have things in common — both from the same generation, both students of former Taipei Symphony Orchestra maestro Chen Chiu-sheng (陳秋盛), both superb opera conductors, both with acclaimed careers in Germany — and that’s a sure proof of ability in anyone.
“But basically Chien is more angular and precise, Lu more flowing and with an eye on the long-term musical structure. It really can be heard in performance, even though things may look the same. But that’s the magic of music-making.”
Lu will begin as music director designate in August. He’ll give three concerts and lead the NSO on its Hong Kong tour in November. He’ll then start a five-year contract as music director in August 2010.
The NSO has had a long search for a new leader since Chien’s departure in July 2007. At one point, two finalists in an audition process gave public concerts, but neither was appointed. Gunther Herbig has acted as a bridge-figure, but everyone will be relieved that this long wait has finally ended with a widely welcomed choice.
The NSO under Chien made a name for itself in opera, introducing many famous works to Taiwan for the first time. There are high expectations that this tradition will be continued under Lu. As general music director of the Hanover State Opera from 2001 to 2006 he conducted a wide range of operas including Aida, Tristan und Isolde, The Marriage of Figaro, Wozzeck, Pelleas et Melisande, Rosenkavalier, Salome, Elektra, The Makropolos Case and Jenufa, and he’s recently conducted Madame Butterfly for Opera Australia and Katya Kabanova with Sweden’s Gothenburg Opera. Taiwan, it seems, has a lot to look forward to.
One of the best places to listen to Lu’s work with the NSO is on two promotional CDs entitled NSO Live. These weren’t issued for public sale but are easily available via the orchestra. They’re recordings taken from public concerts, and the longer of the two features Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 and Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). Both are absolutely fabulous. The Strauss tone-poem displays a marvelous orchestral balance and delicacy, while the Shostakovich symphony is an exceptionally powerful and thoughtful account of an oft-denigrated work. The other CD contains the fourth movements of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony and the fourth movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9.
First and foremost, these CDs display how well the NSO plays under Lu’s direction. But they also show Lu’s independence of mind. Ein Heldenleben is sometimes considered as a display piece, but Lu makes it a sensitive and almost introverted work. And Shostakovich’s Fourth, rarely highly regarded, is treated as a profound piece of soul-searching.
Lu was born in Taiwan, studied music in Taipei, and continued his education in Bloomington, Indiana, and at Vienna’s College of Music. He then won first prize in conducting competitions in Amsterdam, Besancon, France, and Trento, Italy. He consolidated this promising beginning by working largely in Germany, in many ways classical music’s high temple. A major post was in Koblenz where he was appointed music director in 1998.
He continued orchestral and operatic conducting in Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Munich, as well as in London and Brussels. All in all, Taiwan is lucky to get him back.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra (TSO) has been less successful in its search for a new music director. Martin Fischer-Dieskau was never confirmed in the post, despite announcements of his victory in the contest for the job and a never-to-be-forgotten operatic double-bill of Il Segreto di Susanna and Gianni Schicchi in September. He continues as visiting conductor, but his plans for a centenary production of Strauss’ 1909 opera Elektra have sadly been abandoned.
It would appear, therefore, that appointing music directors in Taiwan’s crowded classical music scene is not without its difficulties. The NSO management is thus to be congratulated in having, albeit after many delays, negotiated the stormy waters, and with such palpable success.
Wedged between beef noodle soup joints and cobwebbed Chinese medicine stores, we find organic kombucha vendors and surfers sipping coconut milk lattes. Weaving through alleyways of orange-roofed temples, I pass an elderly man downing Taiwan beers road side. Opposite, a backpacker beer garden hosts sunburned foreigners sampling locally brewed IPA. The unusual juxtaposition reflects a decade-long change slowly crawling upon Waiao (外澳), a sleepy beach town in Yilan County. The locale is jostling between becoming the next surfers’ paradise and its traditional farming and fishing roots. Hospitality is second nature here; my elderly taxi driver describes how the tight-knit rural
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
Some gamers who received a copy of Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong (黑神話:悟空) were given guidelines for what to talk about as they streamed it. Discussing its stunning cinematic graphics, mythical 16th-century plotline and engaging gameplay was permitted. But calling for equal rights for women? Off-limits. Hero Games, one of the early backers of Game Science, the studio behind Wukong, didn’t explain what it meant by including “feminist propaganda” on the list of forbidden talking points, and didn’t respond to my request for comment. Also among the don’t-mention topics were COVID-19, China’s game industry or anything instigating “negative discourse.” The made-in-China blockbuster
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s