TORONTO--On Friday, Ms. Burke, an accomplished musician and music professor, attended the Divine Performing Arts (DPA) show at John Bassett Theatre.
She was thrilled.
“It was amazing! It was just so colourful and so rich and I love the fact that there was this sharing of culture that's happening. Obviously Toronto is a good place for this, so it's long overdue and I think it's wonderful that they have such an array of dance and song and it's intermixed so well. It was just a wonderful experience,” she beamed.
Besides founding and directing a Juno-award winning choir and acting as CEO of an accomplished recording company, Ms. Burke has worked on stage and in recording studios with a number of accomplished vocalists. She's also an assistant professor of gospel choir and jazz vocals.
Ms. Burke said she was most interested in the combination of Chinese and Western musical traditions.
“Even from the introductions being back and forth from Chinese to English it was smooth. But also the orchestra, the fact that they had Chinese and Western instruments and even I was noticing the way in which the singers are sort of operatic but also obviously [singing in their] traditional language and just the interesting way in which they shaped their vowels and the way they stood and even the way they interacted with the accompanying musician . . . I thought it was a really interesting mix.”
With a background in gospel music, Ms. Burke said she found the divinely-inspired themes in the show moving.
Traditional Chinese culture revolved around a belief in the divine and the importance of cultivating virtue. According to the show’s program: “The guiding mission of Divine Performing Arts is to rediscover and renew humanity’s true, rightful cultural heritage. The company thus creates and performs works that centre upon the true, divinely bestowed culture of humankind, and seeks to provide an experience of consummate beauty and goodness.”
Ms. Burke said she enjoyed the performances that conveyed the idea that important aspects of human civilization were gifts from the heavens.
“I think that it is wonderful for culture to recognize that because I think that that is what inspires us. Because as artists this is what inspires us, it keeps us inspired,” she said.
“So, yes, all of that was very very . . . inspiring.”
She added that she found the entire program to be very uplifting.
“If you have never experienced it you need to come! And it might be quite quite familiar and at the same time uplifting. And something you shouldn't miss,” she said.
She said, despite the show presenting Chinese culture, it is something that speaks to Westerners too. “I think what's really important is for us all to understand that we are all human and we have this human connection and music and the arts is something that transcends language.
“It is a wonderful event people should come and if they haven't experienced it they should try!”
Divine Performing Arts will take to the stage five more times in Toronto before moving on to Montreal and then New York City’s iconic Radio City Music Hall.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Divine Performing Arts 2009 World Tour.
For more information visit www.divineperformingarts.org