By Xinming Li, bostonese.com
Lexington, Mass., April 12, 2016, — Just days before the Patriots’ Day, Dream of the Red Chamber concert took stage at Battin Hall just steps away from the Battle Green. You won’t hear any gunshots but wonderful Chinese traditional music and beautiful songs from the classic 1987 Chinese TV series The Dream of the Red Chamber. Over 1,500 music fans attended two concerts in the afternoon and evening on Sunday, April 10.
Composer Wang Liping was honored at the concert (photos by Xinming Li, bostonese.com)
The Dream of the Red Chamber concert was presented by Boston Chinese Musicians’ Association(BCMA) and Asian Cultural Center Boston.
Composer Wang Liping attended the evening concert together with his former Chinese Literature teacher, 106-year-old Mr. Wen Huaisha. Wang has composed many famous theme songs for movies and TV series.
106-year-old Mr. Wen Huaisha(left) and composer Wang in the audience.
The songs performed at the concert were composed by Wang with lyrics by Cao Xueqin, the author of Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Wang was recognized by Zhantao Lin, president of BCMA near the end of the concert.
The concert was hosted by Nina Wang(pictured above), a top-rated China national broadcast journalist and award-winning TV anchor, director and producer.
Mr. Guo Tiansheng, conductor of the concert, is one of the top conductors in China. Since 2012, Mr. Guo has been a board member of BCMA.
Renowned musicians Yazhi Guo and Hui Weng performed in the first half of the concert. Both Mr. Guo and Ms. Weng are graduate of Chinese Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where Mr. Wang Liping took classic Chinese literature lessons from Mr. Wen Huaisha in 1960.
In the second half, solo singers Wanzhe Zhang, Ying Wu, Yan Lian and Yanqin Zeng performed all the 13 songs from 1987 TV series Dream of the Red Chamber withe the BCMA band. Their beautiful performances brought out new life of this most famous novel in Chinese literature, and become instance classic tens of thousands miles away from the Grand-view Garden where the stores of Dream of the Red Chamber took place over 200 years ago.
Please check out more pictures from the concert in the gallery below. Click on a picture to view the larger image.
