Posts Tagged ‘ken smith’
Monday, December 1st, 2008
by Ken Smith Making the rounds among China music-watchers the past couple of weeks has been a report that, following the fuss over lip-synching at the Beijing Olympics, the Ministry of Culture may be clamping down on professional performers “faking it.” First reported in the Guardian, then picked up in numerous news sites and chatrooms, […]
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Tags: beijing olympics, china music, china philharmonic orchestra, forbidden city, ken smith, ministry of culture, shanghai noon, verdi requiem
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on China singing a new tune?
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
by Ken Smith I’d just landed in Shanghai last Saturday, getting ready to compare the Shanghai Opera House’s production of Il trittico with the Il trittico I’d seen the night before in Macau, when I stumbled upon the Alliance of Asia/Pacific Region Orchestras, which was having its annual conference a few blocks away from where […]
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Tags: asia pacific region, guanxi, hong kong philharmonic, il trittico, ken smith, Shanghai Opera House, Shanghai summit
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Shanghaied by Asian Orchestras
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
by Ken Smith Although San Francisco is rather famously open to Asian influences, this season’s production of The Bonesetter’s Daughter has taught people at San Francisco Opera a few new expressions in Chinese. Take “huang niu” – literally, “yellow cow” – which is what the Chinese call scalpers for any public event or transportation requiring […]
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Tags: asian influences, ken smith, san francisco opera, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Xuefeng, yellow cow
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Chinese lessons in San Francisco
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
by Ken Smith Back before the Olympic madness in Beijing and my full immersion in The Bonesetter’s Daughter in San Francisco, I put out word for anyone to help explain what precisely was being premiered in the “global premiere” of Tan Dun’s Tea at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts. I’ve just recently noticed […]
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Tags: Chiang Ching, ken smith, tan dun tea
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on A Cloudy ‘Tea’
Saturday, September 13th, 2008
by Ken Smith Okay, now I have to come clean. For most of the last month I’ve been away from China. Mostly I’ve been in San Francisco for rehearsals of The Bonesetter’s Daughter opera by Stewart Wallace and Amy Tan. This is not exactly getting away from China, since most of the cast and several […]
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Tags: amy tan, bonesetter's daughter, david henry hwang, ken smith
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on China Overseas
Monday, August 11th, 2008
by Ken Smith After my review in the Financial Times asked what exactly was new in the “global premiere” of “the Chinese version” of Tan Dun’s opera Tea at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, I got an email from someone insisting that, based on the photo that ran in the print edition of […]
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Tags: chinese princess, franco zeffirelli, ken smith, mao zedong, tan dun, Tan Dun’s Tea
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Classical music and media in China 4