Sound of Dragon Music Festival returns to Vancouver to show the variety of Chinese music
From April 2 to 5, three concerts and a community event will take place at The Annex and 8EAST
The festival is put together by the Sound of Dragon Music Society. (Submitted)
The seventh Sound of Dragon Music Festival is returning to spotlight the contemporary sounds of Chinese roots.
The festival, presented by the Sound of Dragon Society, will be held in Vancouver from April 2 to 5.
The event celebrates Chinese music, fosters collaborations of artists who work in different genres, and introduces audiences to the contemporary Chinese music community.
The inaugural festival took place in 2014 as the first Chinese music festival in Vancouver, says Lan Tung, artistic director of the Sound of Dragon Music Festival.
“[There] was never a recurring Chinese music festival, although there are many different ensembles and projects,” Tung says.
“People’s impression of Chinese music is usually pretty stereotypical, and audiences go to either traditional or contemporary music…. I’m hoping to have a broader presentation of different projects that musicians engage in and to showcase the variety [of] projects and diversity to let people know that Chinese music has many different possibilities.”
For Tung, organizing this festival comes from working for more than 20 years in Canada. As a musician herself, she performed in many projects, created different ensembles, and collaborated with other people prior to presenting the music festival.
This year’s festival will also feature a free community jam at 8EAST and three concerts at The Annex, with Jade Emperor’s Great Race performing first on April 2 at 8:00 pm. The performance is a collaboration between Toronto’s PhoeNX Ensemble and Taiwan’s Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra.
PhoeNX Ensemble is a cross-cultural mixed chamber ensemble that blends traditional East Asian and western instruments. The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble representing Chinese orchestral music.
Together, the two groups will perform 14 works on the themes of 12 animals and the Jade Emperor, based on a Chinese legend of the 12-year zodiac cycle. According to the legend, the emperor held a race, awarding the first 12 animals to arrive with a corresponding year and creating the zodiac cycle.
“There are different pieces representing different animals and returned by composers from across Canada and a few from Asia,” Tung says. “They have been presented once in Toronto and haven’t been [presented] anywhere else.”
The second concert will present “Strum, Bow, Roar” on April 3 at 7:30 pm. The concert is a mix of three music ensembles who play similar instruments, but bring different cultures and instruments to the stage.
The Vancouver Erhu Quartet will combine erhu — a Chinese violin — together with cello and viola. The Multicultural Wind Ensemble, which was founded by Persian ney player and composer Amir Eslami, brings seven wind instruments: ney, suona and sheng, dizi, shakuhachi, tombak, and daf.
The third group is 88 Strings, a quartet that uses plucked instruments like western guitar, the Chinese harp guitar, as well as the zheng and tar.
“They want to explore the similarity and differences between our instruments in the same family, but from different cultures,” Tung says, adding that the three ensembles started around the same time. “I think it’s pretty interesting to present all three in one night.”
The third concert, “Encounters: Taiwan, Toronto, Vancouver,” will showcase on April 4 at 8:00 pm. It is another collaboration between the PhoeNX Ensemble and the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra — and featuring Vancouver musicians, including Juno-nominated Métis singer-songwriter and composer Wayne Lavallee.
The festival’s free community jam, the Song of Joy Music Party, will take place on April 5 from 2:00 to 3:30 pm at Vancouver’s 8EAST social venue. The party invites the community to join professional musicians and play instruments with them.
Tung says she wanted to have a party accessible to the public and give the opportunity to watch and listen to how Chinese instruments are played. When she was touring summer festivals, she says musicians from different groups would meet, mingle, and play backstage.
“This is a unique initiative — trying to break the chains [between] the performer and audience to have some close interaction.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.soundofdragon.com.
