Two noted US musicians are scheduled to give a concert in an Aboriginal village in Alishan (阿里山) on Friday at the invitation of the Taipei-based Chinese Culture University (CCU), an academic source said yesterday.
Pianist Deborah Nemko and violinist Annegret Klaua will be performing on the campus of a Tsou Tribe elementary school in the mountainous Alishan area of Chiayi County to entertain school children and residents living nearby, said Jessica Su (蘇育代), director of the Musical Education Center operated by the CCU School of Continuing Education.
Nemko and Klaua will arrive from the US on Thursday on their first visit to Taiwan mainly to give lectures at a CCU-sponsored activity called “Music Master Classes and Concerts” from next Monday to May 24.
Su said she was moved by Nemko and Klaua’s decision to stage the concert at the elementary school which does not have an auditorium, a concert piano or a budget to accommodate famous musicians from abroad.
Su said she asked Nemko and Klaua to perform because Aboriginal children have few, if any, chances of attending live performances and have little access to musical education and related resources.
Meanwhile, the concert will allow the US musicians to gain some firsthand knowledge of the nation’s Aboriginal peoples, she said.
Su said both Nemko and Klaua are “thrilled” about the Alishan trip and are looking forward to visiting Taiwan.
NEMKO
Nemko graduated from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign and received advanced degrees from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. She has taught music at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, the University of Arizona and Bridgewater State College.
Nemko serves as the president of the US College Music Society, Northeast Chapter, and was a winner of the Bridgewater State College Jordan Fiore Research in World Justice Prize for 2003.
Her performances include recitals in Belgium, the Czech Republic and in various locations throughout the US.
KLAUA
Violinist Annegret Klaua, a native of Hanover, Germany, is an avid chamber musician, soloist and orchestra player who freelances in the Greater Boston area. She performs regularly with the Gardner Chamber Orchestra and has played and recorded with Alea III, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the String Orchestra of New York City.
Klaua received her bachelor and master’s of music from Indiana University, Bloomington, where she studied with Paul Biss and Franco Gulli.
Klaua, who also has a PhD in musicology from Brandeis University, has taught at Indiana University, Brookline and Acton, Massachusetts, and the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street, a neighboring apartment building tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the site with water to stabilize the groundwater level and then added dirt and cement to stabilize
RSS