The sounds of China arrive to Northern Ireland |
22/02/2007
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland welcomed two musicians from the Jiangsu Symphony who recently performed with the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall.
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Violinist Yan Jie performed China’s most popular orchestral piece the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, conducted by Min Lekang, Principal Conductor of the Jiangsu Orchestra. The two musicians were one of a number of acts that traveled to Northern Ireland to mark the Chinese New Year celebration organised by the Manadarin Speakers Association.
 Violinist Yan Jie from Jiangsu Symphony pictured performing in the Ulster Hall |
Robert Collins, Music Specialist, Arts Council of Northern Ireland said,
“The Arts Council’s vision is to place arts and culture at the heart of Northern Ireland’s social, economic and creative life. We have developed a number of relationships with various artists from different cultures such as the Jiangsu Orchestra and we look forward to further collaborations in the future with other performers from across the world.
“Through the arts we will strive to meet the artistic and cultural expectations of a modern society and we look forward to introducing the people of Northern Ireland to different cultural experiences in the future.”
The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, written in 1958 by two students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, is the most popular and successful of all Chinese violin concertos. It marries aspects of Chinese folk theatre music and techniques borrowed from vocal writing to tell a love story with a poignant and tragic ending.
The single movement Concerto depicts the meeting of the two lovers, their sad separation, their resistance to an arranged marriage, the sickness and death of one, the dramatic suicide of the other, and finally their metamorphosis into butterflies and their eventual happiness.
