The National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra has been invited to perform for the first time in Los Angeles, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles in the “Maestro Tyzen Hsiao Music Festival US 2018”. The program is hosted by the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation, and supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Overseas Community Affairs Council, and various Taiwanese American communities across Los Angeles.
This year marks the 80th birthday of the late maestro Tyzen Hsiao, and to celebrate the occasion, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation, which is founded by Hsiao’s family and friends, led by Hsiao’s good friend Mr. Leonard Hsu, has invited the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra to perform in Los Angeles for the program “Maestro Tyzen Hsiao Music Festival US 2018”. The music festival’s programs will be conducted by Taiwanese maestro Mei-Ann Chen, who currently serves as the music director for the Chicago Sinfonietta. Other performers will include Taiwanese pianist Gwhyneth Chen and Soprano Soloist Li-chan Chen-Maxham. The program will feature classical Tyzen Hsiao works including his Piano Concerto, The Most Beautiful Flower, Do Not Look Down on Taiwan, The Break-Out March, Angel from Formosa, The Beautiful Country, Love and Hope, Taiwan the Formosa. Furthermore, Mr. Leonard Hsu, who has already held many large choral concerts for Hsiao in his youth, has invited musical fans in the greater Los Angeles Area to take part in this music festival together and assembled a 206-person Southern California Taiwanese American chorus. This is all in effort to share with the world the delicate music of Tyzen Hsiao, who lived in the U.S. and expressed his love for Taiwan through his songs.
Maestro Tyzen Hsiao’s works are highly revered in Taiwanese music history. As part of the core project by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture entitled “Reconstructing Taiwanese Music History”, the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles has commissioned Professor Lu-Fen Yen of the Taipei National University of Arts for two consecutive years to preserve and promote the works of Tyzen Hsiao. The research includes local interviews in Taiwan and other regions around the world, and to analyze the musical works themselves. Through these means, not only can the local population appreciate Tyzen Hsiao’s music, musical critics can also explore the status of Taiwanese music from the perspective of the world’s history.