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High School Orchestra Director Takes Students to See Shen Yun
[topic]CHICAGO—Tiffany Chang was born in Taiwan, but grew up in America learning the violin and the cello to become not only an accomplished musician, but also orchestra director for the Beloit Memorial High School in Wisconsin. In Chicago with her students for a music festival she took the opportunity to take her students to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Civic Opera House, April 20.
“I thought it was a really neat experience because it combined so many different things, not just dancing but also live music and singing. I enjoyed that it had all those things,” she said.
Ms. Chang had particularly wanted the students to see “a pretty formal show” and as they all played string instruments she said it had been rewarding for them to see the musicians in the orchestra pit and how they worked with the dance performers.
“I thought that was important for them to see, and also just to listen and to know that they were playing the same instruments as theirs,” she said.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts present China’s five thousand year culture through a number of short pieces combining Chinese classical dance, music and song.
Shen Yun also had an orchestra described as “a one of a-kind with its all-original compositions blends East and West like no other,” the company’s website says.
“The distinctly Chinese sound of ancient instruments like the erhu and the pipa are bathed in a rich sea of Western strings, percussion, woodwinds, and brass. The result—two great classical music traditions producing one fresh, unexpected sound,” the website explains.
Ms. Chang said her grandfather had played the two-stringed erhu and she had grown up listening to both Chinese and Western music, so to see the way Shen Yun “put them together” was particularly interesting she said.
“Overall for me, it was the engagement of everybody, because they couldn’t have timed that well if everybody weren’t completely focused all the time,” she added. “I thought that was really neat.”
Shen Yun is not only about song and dance but it explores the values of traditional Chinese from ancient times to contemporary issues.
Ms. Chang was pleased to see that Shen Yun tackles contemporary issues alongside legends of China’s ancient past particularly for her students to understand the freedoms U.S. citzens experience when compared to the lack of freedom in China today.
Americans take a lot of things for granted,” she said. “We don’t think about religious freedom because we just assume we have it.”
Shen Yun delivers a “kind of message, whether its for religions or other kinds of belief you have a choice, I guess, to be strong about it or to be a by stander.”
Ms Chang said she was hopeful that her students had learned from the performance and that it had, “just brought some awareness to them that in other parts of the world people suffer for what they believe, even if it is peaceful.”
Judging by their response Ms. Chang’s students were inspired by Shen Yun.
Cynita Hyler who plays the viola, said seeing a full orchestra playing live had been inspiring.
I know it takes a lot of courage to get up there and do what they do and it’s a lot of work to learn all that music and play it perfectly every time.
“I know it takes a lot of courage to get up there and do what they do and it’s a lot of work to learn all that music and play it perfectly every time,” she said noting at the same time that she had really enjoyed the show and the orchestra. “It is something to look forward to in the future.”
Violinist, Whitney Klein, commented on the way the artists worked together in the performance, noting the dedication to achieve that.
Yuma Carpenter, knew—cello and oboe, said she expected that there was a lot of pressure in the orchestra pit having to juggle musically the action on the stage as well as the conductor, but seeing it live had a special quality.
“It just made me feel it more and I felt like the musicians were feeling it too, not just in a recording studio doing it.”
Jose Cardenas agreed saying not only was it an experience to hear live music but the sheer size of the orchestra and the pit was memorable.
“Our school only has seven or eight people in it and then seeing this huge pit is mindblowing”
Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world, with a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company will perform in Chicago through April 22.
For more information visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts.
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