Catalogue
Chinese Dances : Purple Bamboo Melody, Song of Happiness (2000)
Programme Note available | View performance history...
Commissioned by BBC Commission for BBCSSO China Tour 2000.
Work Details
Category: orchestral
Duration: 3
Instrumentation: 1+11+122 4231 Tp 3 Perc Str
Item Details
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Publisher: unpublished
Location: archive collection
Format: part(s)
Programme Note
I learned these tunes on a trip to Beijing in 1990 - following performances of my ballet Peter Pan in Hong Kong - from the Er-hu player Zhou Yau-Kun. The following year, his group and mine, the Whistlebinkies, carried out exchange visits and we performed these dances together to audiences in Scotland and China. We again played them in our 1997 visit to Taiwan.
The first is a celebration of new-born life, represented by the young shoots of "Purple Bamboo." The second is an energetic dance of peace and happiness, literally translated "joy unbounded."
