Beat of a Taiwan drum
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-23 09:03

One of the world's best percussion groups, Chu Tzong-ching from Taiwan began a four-day tour in Shanghai September 22.

The Chu Tzong-ching groups played "mask", one of their productions in Hangzhou [File photo/Xinhua]

The group, founded by its artistic director and percussionist Chu Tzong-ching in January 1986, was the first percussion ensemble in Taiwan. It consists of 12 talented percussionists (including one composer) and 14 interns, most of them holding a music master's degree from conservatories in Europe and North America. They possess great skills in Western percussion instruments as well as Chinese gong-drum. Other forms of Asian traditional music also have an important place in their repertoire.

"To bring Taiwan percussion music to the world stage is a powerful thing," says Chu, who graduated from the Vienna Conservatory and previously only played Western music. Chu didn't discover the raw beauty of traditional Chinese music until he returned to Taiwan in the early 1980s.

Since its establishment, the troupe has performed across Asia, Europe and the United States. In 1993, the group headlined the Taipei International Percussion Convention with groups from the United States, Japan, South Korea, France, Sweden, Hungary, Germany, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands.

A year before the group undertook a series of musical theater experiments which resulted in three major multimedia productions -- "Fantasia," "Dream of Chimes" and "See the Music." These productions have incorporated other art forms and created a new audio-and-visual ambiance for percussion.

Aside from performing at major music festivals internationally, the group has also actively cultivated the percussion music environment by regularly commissioning and premiering compositions written by Taiwan's very own composers, including Chien Nan-chang, Pan Hwang-long and Ma Shui-long.

The group's arrangements of traditional Chinese folk tunes and children's songs have contributed to the steadily growing popularity of percussion music in Taiwan. 

The group staged a percussion concert making them the first-ever arts group from Taiwan to perform at a local university, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Following the first concert tonight, there will be two family concerts at Yifu Theater, which will feature arrangements of famous folk and children's songs.

Date: September 24, 7:15pm
Venue: Shanghai Grand Theater, 300 People's Ave
Tickets: 80-280 yuan Tel: 6386-8686, 6322-5294

Date: September 25-26, 7:15pm
Venue: Yifu Theater, 701 Fuzhou Rd Tickets: 40-120 yuan
Tel: 6322-5075, 6322-5294

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