Program
Ching-Mei Lin – Paean for Warrior and Love
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2 – featuring soloist LU Yi-Chih
Beethoven – Symphony No. 7
Seattle Festival Orchestra’s Family Friendly performance on Saturday, February 25th will feature selections from all three pieces, keeping the duration short enough for the young ones in your family. For the full impact of this marvelous music, join us on Sunday, February 26th.
Music expresses the full gamut of the human experience; join the Seattle Festival Orchestra for some of the most triumphant pieces ever written! The concert will start with a bang, featuring the U.S. Premiere of Paean for Warrior and Love by the brilliant Taiwanese composer Ching-Mei Lin. Moving to the old masters, you will hear Beethoven’s glorious Symphony No. 7 in A major. To finish out the concert, all the way from Taipei, the internationally renowned pianist LU Yi-Chih will bring us Rachmaninoff’s powerful Piano Concerto No. 2. With this concert, the orchestra celebrates not only triumphant music, but also some of the great gifts that Taiwan continues to offer classical music.
Paean for Warriors and Love was commissioned by The Council of Indigenous Peoples, Taiwan. The composition’s premise is a traditional song of the Rukai Tribe in Taiwan, The Exploit-Praising Ritual. It depicts various scenes of praise for the achievements of a hunter. Another song of the Rukai, Love Song, is quoted at the end of the composition. Paean for Warriors and Love celebrates the purity of the cycle of struggle, courage, and tenderness. Composer Ching-Mei Lin , who is also an active pianist, organist, improviser and collaborator, is currently an associate professor of music theory and composition at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan.
Soloist LU Yi-Chih has recorded 10 solo piano albums over his career playing works by Brahms, Chopin, Adolph Kurt Böhm, Taiwanese composer Tan Si-Ti, HUNG Chi-Lien, and his own arrangements of Taiwanese folk songs. As a virtuoso pianist and skillful arranger, LU adapts Taiwanese folk songs, popular tunes and piano concerti into solo piano works, many of which have been brought to publication with great reception.
