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Audiences at the WilliamsCenter for the Arts have grown accustomed to witnessing global exploration on stage, so it will be a special treat for concert-goers to listen to the traditional sounds of Music from China, as part of the Sound Alternatives Series, 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2.
Tickets are free for students, $4 for faculty and staff, and $20 for the public. They can be obtained by calling the WilliamsCenter box office at (610) 330-5009.
Music from China’s Lafayette residency will also include presentations at ForksElementary School at 2:15 p.m. Feb. 1; PalmerElementary School at 2:15 p.m. Feb. 2; and a free public workshop on Chinese music noon Thursday, Feb. 1 in the WilliamsCenter.
A five-piece ensemble, the group honors the traditional forms of Chinese music, with hauntingly beautiful melodies performed on centuries-old instruments such as the pipa, a zither-like stringed instrument struck with mallets; the sheng, a reeded mouth organ; and the erhu, the resonant two-stringed fiddle that for many is the very soul of Chinese music.
“Attention to sonic detail is still an essential part of traditional Chinese music, as Music from China demonstrate[s] with grace and virtuosity,” states The New York Times.
Co-directors Zhou Long and Susan Cheng create concert programs of illuminating insight and deep musical beauty, bridging the defining cultural traditions of their homeland with contemporary commentary on how this music continues to inform this vast region of the world.
Based in New York City, Music From China was founded in 1984 by Cheng, and performs for audiences throughout the east coast and cities across the U.S. Music From China has performed at various locations, including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Freer Gallery of Art with Yo-Yo Ma, Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, 92nd Street Y, Longwood Gardens, Princeton University, Eastman School of Music, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Duke University, Chautauqua Institution, and Boston Early Music Festival.
The 2006-2007 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by provisions of the Josephine Chidsey Williams Endowment, Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, James Bradley Fund, and Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour; the F.M. Kirby Foundation, Dexter and Dorothy Baker Foundation, and New England Foundation for the Arts.