The Philadelphia Orchestra on Friday presented a concert featuring both Western and Chinese music to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year.
About 2,000 people came to enjoy Chinese music with a touch of festive celebration at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
The concert not only presented the Spring Festival Overture, which is well known to Chinese audiences, but also Voices of Spring by Johann Strauss II.
Chinese pipa master Zhang Hongyan captivated the audience with Heroic Little Sisters of the Grasslands, a Chinese orchestral piece inspired by a real story of two girls who saved their sheep in a snowstorm in 1960s.
The event also featured the North American debut of the duet Blossoms on a Moonlit River in Spring, which is composed by American Mason Bates and inspired by a classic Chinese Tang poem.
"I mean the whole field of Chinese music I think is very interesting. Especially the fact that it [Blossoms on a Moonlit River in Spring] was composed to a poem, I feel like most Western music is kind of a standalone thing, whereas with the poem aspect kind of adds another layer I think," said an audience member named Chase Fong.
"I especially love the piece with the soloist with the pipa. That was a new experience for me. I was actually crying during the whole performance because even without the words, you can just feel all the emotions," another audience member Zed said.
The concert marks the fifth consecutive year of the Philadelphia Orchestra's Chinese Lunar New Year celebration.
The Chinese Lunar New Year falls on Jan 29 this year, marking the start of the Year of the Snake.
Philadelphia Orchestra brings together Western, Chinese music to celebrate upcoming Chinese New Year
