Saturday, September 27, 2008

Evergreen Symphony Orchestra

The Evergreen Symphony Orchestra is a orchestra founded by Chang Yung-Fa Foundation of Evergreen Group in 2001. The orchestra is featured by bringing up talented Taiwanese players and promoting Taiwanese folk music.

History


In April 2001, the Chang Yung-Fa Foundation invited a number of Chinese musicians and well-known international arts consultants to help form a 20-person Evergreen Orchestra, which was soon expended to a a 70-person symphony orchestra in 2002. Lim Kek-tjiang, a renowned Chinese-Indonesian violinist and conductor, was invited to be the first music director and chief conductor. In July 2004, 36-year-old Wang Ya-hui, the then music director of Akron Symphony Orchestra and former receiver of Evergreen Music Scholarship, took over at the position and became the first female head of symphony orchestra in Taiwan.

ESO has held regular concerts since October 2002 and performs local Taiwanese folk songs and ballads in the form of symphonic music in addition to famous classical works at each concert. Since September 2004, they begun tours abroad, include public performances at the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, Beethoven Music Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and a successful tour to Beijing and Shanghai, China.

In addition to performing, ESO also aims for education. In March 2005, they organized an international musical education event and invited the internationally renowned violinist Zakhar Bron to Taiwan to share and teach his skills to local students.

Music directors


* Lim Kek-tjiang , 2002-2004
* Wang Ya-hui , 2004-2006
* Gernot Schmalfuss, 2007-present

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