Red Chamber Concert

On November 22rd, 2012 at 12:30pm, Red Chamber, a well-known Chinese string band formed by four Chinese expatriates living in Vancouver, presented an excellent concert in the Convocation Hall. The repertoire of the concert includes multiple styles, such as classical and modern, etc. and received warm applause from the audience.

This concert is co-hosted by The School of Art and Confucius Institute (CI) at McMaster University. Before the concert, the CI handed out Brief Notes on Traditional Chinese Musical Instruments to the audience. Over 40 students and faculties attended this concert. Dr. Angela Sheng ,the Director Chair of the CI, introduced the four outstanding musicians to the audience: HAN Mei, the leader of the team as well as the Guzheng player; LIU Guilian, the Pipa mater; YU Zhimin, the Ruan player, and JiANG Geling who is a master of various instruments.

The concert consists of music of different styles. The four musicians demonstrated various traditional Chinese instruments, including Guzheng, Pipa, Ruan, Sanxian and Liuqin. The Concert started with a lively and cheerful “Girls Picking Flowers”. Later, the band plays 7 other songs, from ancient and elegant “Qing Bei Yue” and “Sunny Spring, White Snow” to “Dark Red Ruby”, which contains a flavor of Klezmer and jazz; from “Spring in Heavenly Mountain” and “Dance of the Yao people”, which are based on minority melodies of China, to exotic folk tune “Datun Jelut”. After each song, the audience always burst into thunderous applause.

After the concert, many people lingered to talk with the musicians. The four ladies not only answered their questions patiently, but also warmly introduced the history and the characteristics of their instruments. They even invited the interested audience to try the instrument themselves.

This concert demonstrated the unique charm of traditional Chinese music. Since its inception, the CI of McMaster continued to promote Chinese and will continue to work closely with student and communities and other cultural organizations to stimulate cultural exchange .