Thanks to the fruitful visitation to the art collection of Mr. Kenneth Lo from last May, with great pleasure, this year the Art & Culture Group of Welcome to Taipei International Club co-organized with the Industrial Bank of Taiwan Education Foundation a wonderful concert “Les Duos d’Amour” with world-renowned harpist Shannon Chien and flutist Christian Plouvier at the concert hall of Head Office of Industrial Bank of Taiwan on February 13, 2015.
Prior to the St. Valentine’s Day, that evening was imbued with romantic and enchanted atmosphere. The concert hall was packed with music lovers; everyone enjoyed so much of those soothing and mellifluous pieces of music played by Christian and Shannon.
That night’s repertoire was mainly flute and harp concertos. The first piece was “Green sleeves”, a lovely and well-known English folk song, followed by “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” composed by the popular and influential German opera composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.
Then, a beautiful concerto “The Andante in C” composed by Mozart, which cast the spell on the audience for Christian and Shannon who both played harmonically. That is the only piece of music made by Mozart that contains the harp instrument.
During the performance, Christian and Shannon took us on a magic carpet riding to the musical world with wonderfully ear-caressing blend music and bi-lingual introductions. For instance, Claude Debussy’s “En Bateau”, the first movement of “The Petite Suite”, its long-spanning melody that glided above rolled chords, a sound that crossed the dreamy moonlit water.
Along with Debussy, French composer Maurice Ravel was another prominent figure associated with the Impressionist music. Ravel’s first significant work “Habanera” was a popular dance music piece of the 19th century.
On the musical world map, we journeyed from England to Germany, Italy to France, Christian and Shannon then presented a piece of Japanese music “The Sea in Spring” composed by Michio Miyagi in 1929, who created the melody from his childhood image of the sea of Momonoura that he saw before he lost his eyesight. Its repeated rhythmical melody sounded like the waves of sea rolling onto the shore.
While taking the musical tour on down, two Taiwanese love songs “Love Song” and “Bang Chun Hong” were extremely dulcet. Christian and Shannon played the variations so beautifully that bountifully illuminating their performances.
Last concerto was “Histoire du Tango” composed by the Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla, who revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style named “Nuevo tango”, a combination of jazz and classical music. Those three pieces were infectiously cheerful and energizing.
“Les Duos d’Amour” was an enjoyable and intellectual music concert. Our appreciations go to two great musicians Christian Plouvier and Shannon Chieh and group of staff of the Industrial Bank of Taiwan Education Foundation, for their sound thoughtfulness and neat arrangement.
By Juling Chang Lee
Chair of the Art & Culture
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