Lunar New Year fun starts at Kennedy Center

A two-week Lunar New Year celebration, kicked off with a "vibrant and colorful" concert by the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra on Wednesday, will be a magnet of fun and education for people in the US capital and beyond, Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter said.

Through Feb 2, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will stage its fifth annual Lunar New Year celebration, featuring a series of hands-on activities for all ages, and the center's most popular Chinese New Year Family Day on Saturday, when Chinese people half a world away will ring in the Year of the Rat.

The ticketed concert, under the baton of Tang Muhai, the only Grammy Award-winning Chinese conductor, riveted the audience in the packed Concert Hall. It was followed by the opening of a winter lanterns display on the center's REACH campus.

"We've really loved celebrating this momentous time of year," Rutter told China Daily. "I loved the program tonight. It was particularly vibrant and colorful, and felt like a real celebration."

As a cornerstone event of this year's celebration, the concert by the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra presented a repertoire of works by contemporary Chinese composers, including world-renowned artist Tan Dun, another Grammy Award-winner.

The concert prominently featured Chinese instruments, including erhu, also known as the Chinese violin; dizi, a bamboo flute; sheng, a wind instrument consisting of multiple reed pipes; ruan or moon guitar; and zheng or zither.

The orchestra is dedicated to presenting Chinese music with an international vision and a contemporary style, according to a press release from the Kennedy Center.

Programs that lasted for nearly 90 minutes include "Landscape Around the Lake", "Spirit of Chinese Calligraphy", "Dancing Phoenix", and "Flying Bees", which was adapted from Flight of the Bumblebee, an orchestral interlude written by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

During the performance of Whispers of Wind and Birds, which was composed by Tan Dun, the Chinese artists were seen taking out their cell phones to play a brief recording of birds. They also snapped their fingers and whispered the word wind in Chinese.

"It was so warm, so enthusiastic, and I love maestro Muhai Tang and his creativity, his breadth of programming. He did a great job programming this evening," Rutter said.

Rutter, who together with Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai made brief speeches before the performance, said the show had "the most sophisticated audience that we've had for this particular program, the Lunar New Year program".

"I think that our audiences in the DC, Maryland and Virginia region have come to understand what we're trying to do," she said, referring to the center's years of programs to honor the traditional holiday observed in China and some other parts of the world.

"Having the creativity of ideas to expand the celebration from just a couple of days to over two weeks, and then to be able to have the lanterns out in the landscape at the REACH, will be such a magnet for guests, those who certainly know the stories and celebrate Lunar New Year, and those who want to come and learn more," she added.

Conductor Tang, who also led the Beijing Symphony Orchestra in a Lunar New Year celebration program at the Kennedy Center in 2017, said music is the bridge bonding the feelings and moods of the people throughout the world.

"The audience here are passionate; people on the stage and off the stage are connected," he told China Daily. "I could feel their enthusiasm and their passion for Chinese music."

After the concert, Rutter and Ambassador Cui attended a brief ceremony for the opening of the REACH Winter Lanterns display.

The outdoor space at the REACH is adorned by about 100 lanterns, which are crafted by Chinese artisans and made up of 10,000 colored LED lights.

The display includes a four-piece installation of the Chinese "Four Symbols" — azure dragon, vermilion bird, white tiger, and black tortoise — which represent a direction and a season in Chinese mythology. Other installations include the 12 zodiac signs, Panda Grove, Mushroom Garden, Floral Garden, Jelly Fish corner, and Water Lilies displays.

Visitors can enjoy performances and artisan demonstrations, food tracks and more, according to the center's press release.