Organist Liu Hsin-hung (劉信宏) is to play the biggest pipe organ in Asia on Double Ten National Day at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, the center said on Monday.
The center is to hold an open house event on Wednesday next week, three days before its grand opening, it said.
Visitors would be able to listen to recitals and performances by artists, including Liu, for free, the center added.
Photo: Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Liu is to play Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sinfonia from Cantata No. 29 and Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, George Shearin’s I Love Thee, My Lord, Antonin Dvorak’s Humoresques, and Teng Yu-hsien’s (鄧雨賢) Variation on the Theme of Spring Wind.
The twin organ with 127 stops and 9,085 pipes was built by the German firm Johannes Klais Orgelbau.
The company called the NT$120 million (US$3.91 million) organ its “magnum opus.”
For optimal acoustic effect, the center’s concert hall utilizes a “vineyard style” layout with terraced seating surrounding the stage and ceiling panels whose height and shape can be adjusted, the center said.
TBLE Brass — Taiwan’s only comedy brass ensemble — is to perform a comical routine entitled All The King’s Men (國王的人馬) featuring classical music and physical comedy at the concert hall.
The center’s theater playhouse is to feature a musical and theatrical introduction to the center by Po You Set (?優座), a troupe that performs traditional Chinese opera and modern theater.
At the recital hall, Nous Chantons is to perform New York ... er, a musical about young Taiwanese living in New York City that is inspired by the episodic format of modern television.
The event is to run from 11am to 9pm, and the performances are to take place from noon to 6:30pm with walk-in admission, the center said.
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 (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings 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 building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the