SYDNEY—While it is the extraordinary dancers and beautiful costumes that so immediately capture the attention of Western audiences, it is the music of Shen Yun, a New York-based performance company, that is integral to the appeal. This year, Australian audiences will for the first time be treated to the full Shen Yun orchestra.
Shen Yun is unique in the way it presents a deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture while acknowledging the importance of accessibility for Western audiences.
Shen Yun music, composed specifically for each performance, is accordingly pitched to a Western audience, but with an intrinsically Chinese flavour.
Many of the performers are musicians, top in their field, who left China seeking freedom of expression. Some were trained in Western classical instruments, but a number play traditional Chinese instruments.
Included in the repertoire will be aficionados of the erhu, the two-stringed Chinese instrument, and the suona, or Chinese oboe.
Ms Ying Chen, conductor of one of Shen Yun’s three orchestras, says the combination of Chinese and Western instruments is rarely seen outside of China.
“Many Chinese people are proud of it and many Westerners are impressed by the Chinese performing art,” she told The Epoch Times.
Western and Chinese music is very different, she says, in the way Chinese and Western art is different.
“Western music has an integrated music system and demands precision in every aspect. The Chinese music focuses on the content, like a Chinese painting that relies on free strokes and shuns details, and brings you to another dimension,” she said.
Ms Chen said combining both Chinese and Western influences is difficult to do well. “It would turn out to be neither fish nor fowl if you weren’t careful,” she said.
Shen Yun, she says, has done well in “capturing both the inner meaning of Chinese music” manifested with the techniques and variety of Western music.
“Our orchestra is a unique and ingenious combination,” she said with a smile.
While northern hemisphere audiences have already been treated to the full company of Shen Yun Performing Arts, one of the Shen Yun orchestras, the Shen Yun New York Company orchestra, will for the first time accompany the dancers and singers to Australia for the 2010 Shen Yun World Tour.
Ms Chen, who started her music studies at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, will most likely be the conductor
US conductor David Dworkin said he had gained much respect for Ms Chen after seeing her conduct Shen Yun in New York.
It is not an easy job to bring the orchestra in line to work with dancers and opera singers, he said.
“So if besides just orchestral conducting to work with dance is difficult, to work in opera is difficult as well because you work with singers and it’s very flexible, but this has got to be right there and it’s got to be very consistent. She is a wonderful conductor,” he added.
Ms Chen began her musical career at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music before moving to the United States, where she became principal flautist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In fact, she joined Shen Yun as a flautist, but moved quickly into composing and conducting.
She says much of the success of Shen Yun is the harmony between the dancers and the musicians. The composers put in much effort to complement the dance to express the plot, emotion, essence and spirit, she said.
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