PORTLAND,Oregon—Two lifelong friends, both retired teachers, one specializing in music, expressed delight after seeing the Divine Performing Arts (DPA) Chinese New Year Spectacular debut in Portland at Keller Auditorium on Tuesday.
“A beautiful, beautiful show and everything...gorgeous. Just everything, I mean everything was beautiful,” said Sonja, who taught music in grade school for over 30 years.
“I like the live orchestra, I am glad they had a live orchestra,” she added.
The DPA Orchestra begins with a classical Western orchestra as its foundation and augments this with traditional Chinese instruments, enabling its compositions to at once mine the potential of Western orchestral music and yet be rich in Chinese qualities.
Sonja said listening to the mix of instruments was an enjoyable learning experience.
Her love of music began in grade school where she and her friend Rosemary both joined the school choir. Sonja later studied music at Portland State University and went on to the University of Oregon.
Throughout the years, she has often attended symphony, opera, and Broadway shows, but DPA presented her with something she had not seen before.
“I learned a lot from this, I just learned about everything […]Costumes, the color, the lighting and the photography and just the whole thing.”
“All together it’s wonderful, I think it’s great,” she said.
