NEW YORK—Stewart F. Lane, a six-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, walked out of a Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall saying, “I have to tell you the sound is beautiful. The orchestra, very talented. And the voices, the voices are superb.”
“In fact, I wish it could go on even longer,” he said as they broke for intermission on the evening of Oct. 10. “I could have stayed for another hour and a half.”
Mr. Lane, who won best play in 2011 for “War Horse,” and best musical in 2014 for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” said he was exhilarated by the violin solo in the performance.
“It got me very excited just listening to her,” he said. “She has so much power.”
The violin soloist was Fiona Zheng, a virtuoso who has been playing the violin since the age of 5.
“The idea of going to a concert and seeing the musicians performing like that, it just enhances the experience,” Mr. Lane said. “You cannot beat live concert productions, you just can’t.”
Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra produces powerful yet distinctly elegant sounds by merging classical Eastern instruments—such as the two-stringed violin—with the grandeur of Western instruments.
The musicians of the Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra are also part of the Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance company, which every year performs at locations such as Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and renowned stages around the world.
Mr. Lane has seen the Shen Yun dance performance previously at Lincoln Center. “It was a wonderful experience because the technology dovetailed so nicely with the art of music,” he said. “And the dance, it was very progressive and I learned a lot from it.”
Reporting by NTD Television and Amelia Pang
New York-based Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra comprises musicians from the four Shen Yun Performing Arts touring companies. Shen Yun Performing Arts begins its 2016 world tour on Dec. 22, 2015.
The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the company’s inception in 2006.
