The concert opens with my favorites, the lion dancers. They come down the aisle and dance at the front of the house. Two get up on stage and dance on sawhorses. This alone would disqualify me as a lion dancer. I’ve danced on many surfaces, but no way am I dancing on a sawhorse. How much can they see in there? The dancers endow the costumes with such life: the eyes blink, the ears and tails move, and the mouths open and close. The costumes are a riot of color, stripes and sparkles. (No pictures. One, because I’m lame, and two, because flashes disorient the performers and are not allowed during the performance.) The dancers are very acrobatic. There are two per lion. In one signature move, the front dancer leaps straight up and back and lands on the knees of the rear dancer. Then he balances there, while doing things like kicking his feet, holding a banner or maybe some paper flowers in his (that is, the lion’s) mouth. While these two were dancing, the ones on the floor reclined and went to “sleep”, only to be woken up by the man in the orange robe (also a costume) whacking them with his fan.
A new addition this year was the Crystal Children’s Choir. The boys all wore black tuxedos and the girls wore colorful dresses from the different provinces of China. There were probably over a hundred singers. (The program indicates there are a thousand members total.) They started things off by singing a traditional Chinese melody, Jasmine Flower.
The next two pieces were more traditional tunes, Streaming Creek and Reed Flowers played by a Chinese ensemble called Melody of China. The instruments here are the erhu (Chinese violin), hammer dulcimer, bamboo flute, sheng (mouth organ – still trying to figure this one out. He didn’t appear to be using his mouth.) and the guzheng, or table harp.
I think this event is fun for the symphony musicians as well, since they don’t get to play this stuff very often. They seemed to enjoy it. Except for Bored Tuba Man LEANING ON HIS TUBA during this piece. You’re on stage, man! Have some respect!
Being that Valentine’s Day was just a week away, the theme this year was Romeo and Juliet. So it was fitting that the first piece of Western music of the evening was Tchaikovsky’s great Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Our conductor likes to talk about the music before it is played. She broke it all down for us, had the orchestra play the separate themes individually so we would recognize them when we heard them. The love theme is very famous, it’s been used in lots of movies, TV shows and cartoons. Watch A Christmas Story if you don’t believe me.
After the intermission, we were treated to Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to West Side Story. Man, there is nothing like hearing this live. If I were a percussionist, this would have been my favorite piece of the evening. Just hearing a bunch of black-suited symphony musicians shout “MAMBO!” made my night. And that slide trombone player needs to play some Gershwin badly.
The next piece was the star of the evening. The Butterfly Lovers Concerto is based on a legend of two Chinese lovers, Zhu Yingtai and Liang Shambo. This legend is considered to be the Chinese equivalent of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was played by an extraordinary violinist, Siqing Lu. I love this man. He played like was he born doing it. (He nearly was, he started lessons when he was three.) After the show, I bought his CD and he signed it for me. This was the highlight of the evening.
The concert closed with another traditional Chinese song, Gong Xi Gong Xi. This was sung by the choir and we, the audience, joined in. This song wishes health, wealth and prosperity for all in the coming year.
Speaking of the coming year, the daffodils seem to think spring is here. I brought some home for a little color.
However, someone forgot to clue in the rain clouds. There has been such a variety of colors and patterns in the sky these days. When I opened my door yesterday morning, I saw this:
I love the play of light in the tree against the cloudy sky. Not bad for San Bruno.
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