衛武營國家藝術文化中心 National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)

Beyond the Score® is a comprehensive multimedia experience that brings the listener through a lively historic context, revealing illuminating stories, intriguing perspectives and thoughtful insights within a musical score. In this year's festival, Curator and Artistic Director Unsuk CHIN particularly selected Pictures at an Exhibition, focusing on "symphony with visual and listening experience," which expands the style of classical music events.

Pictures at an Exhibition is a piano piece by Russian composer Modest MUSSORGSKY inspired by the paintings of Viktor HARTMANN. There is the lively and jubilant Ballet of Unhatched Chicks, as well as the majestic The Great Gate of Kiev. The suite has the sounds of both minimalism and extreme complexity, which vividly convey the detailed characters of the original paintings. The French composer Maurice RAVEL, who was skilled at orchestration, later adapted it for full orchestra. The subtle arrangement made the work become one of the most popular repertoires in orchestral concerts. Through the use of Live actors, musical examples, and breathtaking projections, we will be hearing the vocal narration along with the music, explaining the original intention of the composer, how RAVEL “symphonized” the piano score, allowing us to appreciate the charm of the tone painting once again.

  Program  

MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL: Pictures at an Exhibition

  Creative and Production Team  

Conductor｜YANG Chih-chin

Piano｜LIAO Pei-chun

Actor｜HSU Yi-sheng

Narrator｜Betsy LAN

Orchestra｜Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra

  Artists Introduction  

Conductor｜YANG Chih-chin

Principal Conductor of Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra (KSO), YANG Chih-chin is a renowned conductor in his generation in Taiwan. Born in 1969, he graduated from The Russian Academy of Gnesin, Moscow, Russia, and studied with Miroslav RUSIN, Filex CHEN Chiu-Sheng, András LIGETI, Gunther HERBIG, Michael JUROWSKI. Before joining KSO, YANG served as the Assistant Conductor of Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Conductor of Opera Studio of National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center, Taiwan.

YANG obtains very great success in performance from the public by his passion of music, rich orchestral color control capabilities, excellent rhythm, and faithful interpretation of the score.

YANG has performed with many excellent soloists including Vadim REPIN, Ivo POGORELICH, Andrei GAVRILOV, Sergei NAKARIAKOV, Akiko SUWANAI, Valentina LISITSA, Konstantin LIFSCHITZ, Gavriel LIPKIND, Alban GERHARDT, YANG Wen-Sinn, Ilya GRINGOLTS, Alexei VOLODIN, Tsuyoshi TSUTSUMI, LIN Cho-Liang, HU Nai-Yuan, and LIU Meng-Chieh.

YANG has worked with and conducted Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Voronezh Philharmonic Orchestra, Württemberg Philharmonic Reutlingen, Bulgarian State Opera Burgas, Filarmonica Brasov, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa of Japan, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and Nanjing Jiangsu Symphony. Highlights in recent season, 2017, YANG was invited to Kanazawa Japan with KSO, performing in Spring Green Music Festival where they were highly acclaimed by critics and reviews.

Piano: LIAO Pei-chun

"[LIAO's] playing showed great subtlety and a real sense of color and variety, particularly in quiet passages, and there was throughout a sense of a real communicative force in the playing which was very persuasive." - Ronan O'Hora

Hailed as a "truly matured pianist" by pianist BADURA-SKODA, LIAO Pei-chun has won a prizes at the International Chopin Competition in Taiwan; recognition at National Theater and Concert Hall’s Young Stars Series; in solo performance from the Birmingham Conservatoire; and second prize overall as well as prizes for best concerto and musician with the greatest potential at the Mauro Paolo Monopoli Prize Piano Competition.

She has performed at Mozarteum Wiener Sall in Salzburg; Salle Cortot in Paris; Rachmaninov Hall in Tambov; the Barber Institute, Birmingham Symphony Hall, and London Regent Hall in the UK; and in Castilla y León in Spain, and has been frequently invited to music festivals in the US and Italy as a resident artist and performance instructor. Recent collaborations have been with trumpeter Reinhold FRIEDRICH, violinist Benny KIM, and pianists Peter DONOHOE and Benjamin FRITH. She has performed with the Taipei Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Moments Musicaux, National Chinese Orchestra in Taiwan, and Bacau Philharmonic Orchestra. She studied under CHEN Tai-cheng, Philip MARTIN, Malcolm WILSON, and Vitali BERZON, received bachelor's and master's degrees in music performance from the Birmingham Conservatoire and the highest honor from the Musikhochschule in Freiburg. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Taipei.

Actor: HSU Yi-sheng

A university lecturer, stage performer, playwright, and director, HSU Yi-sheng earned a master's in vocal performance from National Taipei University of Education. In 2009, he won the Newcomer Award at the Association of Vocal Artists of ROC and worked at the Opera Workshop of the National Theater and Concert Hall. In 2019, he received high acclaim for his performance in the global debut of Nobel laureate GAO Xingjian's The Monologue. He currently teaches at Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Shih Chien University, and National Taiwan Normal University.

He initiated his opera career by playing Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi in 2008. He has also played LIU in Mackay: The Black-bearded Bible Man, L'oste and Sergente in Manon Lescaut, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Guglielmo in Così Fan Tutte, L'Horloge Comtoise and Le Chat in L'enfant et les Sortilèges, Marquis in La Traviata, Alexis in La Sonnambula, the king, ambassador, and woodman in Sleeping Beauty, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Peter in Hansel and Gretel, Schaunard in La Bohème, Ying Kao-shu and the Knight in A Vow to the Underworld Spring, and the moon thief in Der Mond. In 2018, he played the storyteller,  Pangloss, and Martin in Weiwuying's Candide.

He became more active in stage drama in 2012, including Godot Theatre Company's Mr. Right Wanted, U, Brother?, and Our Town; and Performer's Bright Sky and Brothers. Musicals include the Taipei Symphony Orchestra's Green Island Serenade, Godot Theatre Company's Kiss Me Nana and Love Ya Mom; National Taiwan Normal University's Classic of Mountains and Seas; Just Murmur's Afternoon, 4 Persons at the Museum and Non Reading Club; and B'in Music's An Accident of Love. His children's plays include If Kids' Angels Love to Sing, Dogs, and Rhythm Way Back Home.

His major works as a playwright/director include Qi's Trouble for the National Symphony Orchestra; the a cappella musical Dad Stealing Fish, the symphony musical Peer Gynt Suites, Excerpts from Carmen, and the musical The Grandma's Songbook for the Pingtung Cultural Affairs Bureau; and the musical Closing Off the Heart and the opera Hansel and Gretel for the 2014 Tainan Arts Festival.

Narrator: Betsy LAN

Betsy LAN, a highly experienced stage performer and producer, performed in Shakespeare's Wild Sisters Group's Once, upon Hearing the Skin Tone and Tsen,。 (which respectively won the top prize and the special jury prize at the 2010 Taishin Arts Awards) and The Party Theatre Group's The Sky Crisis (named one of the 2009 Top Ten Performing Arts Acts). Other major performances are the monologue Nostalgia, Assignment Theatre's Hot Time and The Corruption Opera, Riverbed Theatre's Life and Times of Robert Wilson and One Hundred Nights' Dreams, Yen Ling HSU's Sisters Trio and Skin Touching, and LI Huan-hsiung's Jimmy's Subway Book—A Musical Journey. She has been recorded for The Clippers' album Underground Man, THE SOUND: Chien-chi Chen Music 1997–2007, and Public Television Service's A.S.T. She managed several different voices as the storyteller in Buchettino (directed by Chiara Guidi) at the Taipei Children's Arts Festival and was instrumental in bringing The Vagina Monologues to V-Day in Taipei. Besides, she has been a producer for the 2008 Taiwan Women Theatre Festival, the international contact for the Taipei Poetry Festival, a member of the film selection committee for Women Make Waves, a curator for the Weiwuying Children's Festival and Taipei Fringe Festival. She is currently an assistant professor at Shu-Te University and a founding member of the Asian Producers' Platform.

Orchestra: Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra (KSO)

Wherever there is music, there is you.

A young orchestra which marches on steadily

It is an asset for a city to have an orchestra of its own. Young and energetic, the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra (KSO) invites world-class conductors and masters for collaboration and challenges itself by staging performances of diversified styles. The development of the orchestra focuses on both classical and crossover genres; it has not only created increasingly more high quality musical miscellanies for music enthusiasts but also planted numerous seeds for music appreciation and performance, contributing to the innovation of classical music.

The Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1981. It was merged with the Kaohsiung Chinese Orchestra in 2009 as "Kaohsiung Philharmonic Culture and Arts Foundation." Since 2009, the KSO has made considerable contribution in the Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival, successfully promoting its grassland concerts. In the last decade, the KSO has collaborated with renowned local and international artists and music groups and staged numerous concert series. The KSO has been invited to perform on international stages regularly. Reaching beyond city and country borders, the KSO advances steadily with the self-development goal of becoming an internationally acclaimed orchestra.

Beyond the Score® is a production of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Gerard McBurney, Creative Director for Beyond the Score®

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