Sat, Dec 10, 2022 page2

• Weiwuying announces music, dance next year

  CREATIVE VARIETY: The arts center announced its full schedule for next year, featuring operas, festival performances, concerts and other theatrical works

  • Staff writer, with CNA
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  The National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, also known as Weiwuying, unveiled its major programs for the first half of next year, touting exclusive performances and two music festivals in spring.

  Weiwuying is to present 34 programs it is producing or coproducing, with up to 19 held exclusively at the arts center, Weiwuying’s general and artistic director Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬) told a news conference in Kaohsiung on Tuesday last week.

  The arts center is to begin next year with a live broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert on Jan. 1, the 15th year the event is to be held at Weiwuying, a former military facility before construction of the arts center began on the site in 2010.

  

  National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts general and artistic director Chien Wen-pin, front row, fifth right, and others attend a news conference in Kaohsiung on Tuesday last week.

  Photo: Huang Hsu-lei, Taipei Times

  A series of free performances are scheduled to take place in open spaces or public areas from Jan. 24 to 26 during the Lunar New Year holiday, including the Zhen Zong Culture and Art Performance Troupe’s Dragon and Lion Dance With Drum Beats in celebration of the new year, Chien said.

  In February, Weiwuying is to present its second “Master Play” concert, focusing on works by late singer-songwriter Ang It-hong (洪一峰), who has been dubbed the “King of Formosan Music” for his songs written in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Weiwuying said.

  Golden Melody Award-winning singer Henry Hsu (許富凱) is to perform Ang’s songs, with Chien conducting the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, on Feb. 4 and 5.

  Following the success of its 24-hour event playing Franz Schubert’s music earlier this year, Weiwuying is organizing a “musical marathon” of works composed by Mozart on Feb. 11 and 12 in its Concert Hall and Recital Hall, along with talks to introduce the “child prodigy” to the public, it said.

  In March and April, the arts center has scheduled the Weiwuying Organ Festival and the Weiwuying International Music Festival respectively, it said.

  Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna is this year’s curator of the organ festival and would headline the event featuring the largest pipe organ in Asia at the arts center, Weiwuying said.

  For the second edition of the international music festival, the event’s artistic director, South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, has planned performances including Western classical music and works by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg.

  In May, Weiwuying is to host two contemporary dance works — the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s 1978 piece Legacy by group founder Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) to mark the dance troupe’s 50th anniversary, and Israeli choreographer Yuval Pick’s Vocabulary of Need created with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita in D minor, BWV 1004, the arts center said.

  In June, Whale Island would tell a “mythical epic” based on the history and environment of Taiwan in a theatrical work featuring traditional Nanguan and Beiguan music, as well as puppetry. It would be a joint production by Weiwuying, National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei and National Taichung Theater.

  Weiwuying would also present two exclusive programs in June — two concerts by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and two performances of “dragons” by South Korean choreographer Ahn Eun-me, Chien said.

  Chien also offered a peek into programming for the second half of next year, when Weiwuying would celebrate its fifth anniversary, including a children’s music festival in July, Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischutz in September and concerts by Germany’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in November.

  Information about Weiwuying’s upcoming programs can be found on its Web site www.npac-weiwuying.org.

  From Thursday, the arts center is to offer members a 25 percent discount on tickets to its programs, and a 20 percent discount for the general public from Dec. 22. Both discounts would be available until Jan. 8.
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