China National Symphony Orchestra (CNSO) has the honor of being the first symphony orchestra from China to perform at the renowned theatre on October 7. The orchestra will then travel to perform in Canberra on October 8 and Melbourne on October 9.

CNSO's first tour to Australia -- sponsored by Telstra, an Australian telecom company -- will be one of the most significant celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of China-Australia diplomatic relations.

"We feel some pressure ahead of our performance at such a renowned opera house but we are confident as well," said Li Xincao, one of the most promising conductors in China.

"All members are rehearsing with great enthusiasm and passion to present Australian audiences with an impressive Chinese symphony orchestra."

Li is widely acclaimed for his excellent performances in German and Austrian musical pieces and those composed by contemporary composers.

He won the first prize in the National Conducting Contest in 1993 and subsequently became the chief conductor of the National Ballet of China.

Three years later, he went to Austria to study at the Weiner Musikhochschule at the invitation of conductor Leopold Hager.

In 1997, he won second prize in the 45th Besancon International Conducting Competition held in France. And before becoming conductor-in-residence with the CNSO, Li cooperated with the orchestra in several performances.

Leading Band

Founded in 1956 in Beijing, CNSO has since become one of the leading orchestras in China. It performs a wide range of classical and contemporary orchestral works by Western and Chinese composers.

It has worked with world-famous conductors like Seiji Ozawa, Herbert von Karajan and Yehudi Menuhin.

In recent years, it has toured many countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Austria, Spain, Mexico and Japan.

For this tour to Australia, the CNSO will perform contemporary works of composers of both countries under the baton of Li Xincao, conductor-in-residence of the orchestra.

"As well as one work commissioned for our orchestra by Australian composer Constantine Koukias, we have chosen a number of Chinese works to introduce Chinese music as well as Chinese culture to Australian audiences," said Yu Songlin, head of the orchestra.

These Chinese pieces include world-renowned composer Tan Dun's Self Portrait from Death and Fire, Out of Peking Opera and Orchestra Theatre II Re, Mu Guiying Takes Command and Xu Zhenmin's Fengqiao Yebo.

Tan Dun is widely considered to be the foremost contemporary Chinese composer and won an Academy Award last year for his score for the film Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The score successfully combines elements of Chinese traditional music with contemporary Western compositional techniques.

Tan Dun's work is marked by a fascination with tone color for its own sake. His instrumental pallet includes both traditional Chinese and Western instruments, frequently combined to intriguing effect.

His spacious arrangements and use of silence suggest the sounds of nature and the Taoist and Buddhist philosophies of his native China, and his work exhibits a distinctly ritual quality inspired by the folk practices he encountered as a youth.

In Death and Fire: Dialogue with Paul Klee (1992), Tan's ideas of orchestra as ritual are more internationalized, and more prominence is given to Western materials.

The work finds inspiration in the primal but international paintings of Paul Klee, with whom Tan feels a personal resonance.

"Klee was concerned with finding formal means to embody deep and universal feeling without bitterness or pathos, and out of sophisticated complexity to make a concentrated simplicity," Tan said.

"Line, which in his thinking was associated both with melody and dynamism, was a major element in his work. This is closely related to the Chinese aesthetic, which is linear, non-harmonic and seeks the soul of the work rather than surface effects."

A sense of timelessness pervades Orchestral Theatre II: Re (1993), which distributes musicians around the concert hall to enfold listeners in a ritual of sound, space, and silence.

For Tan, the concept of "ritual" does not denote a religious rite, but is merely the atmosphere of a "spiritual ceremony" in which both the performers and audience participate.

The bass soloist emulates the chanting of a Tibetan monk and declaims phrases from the Chinese philosopher Laozi (Lao Tzu) and the poet Liu Zongyuan of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) in a style reminiscent of Peking Opera.

The piece also inhabits a narrow pitch area, centered on D (Re) and its neighboring tones. Such restrictions allow timbral development to predominate rather than directional melody, harmony, and rhythm, as typical in the West.

Out of Peking Opera for violin and orchestra originally composed in 1987 and revised in 1994 develops a familiar quote from Peking Opera's jinghu fiddling.

Fengqiao Yebo is based on the poet, Zhang Ji, who lived during the Tang Dynasty. Composer Xu Zhenmin well interprets the poet's mood and the natural scene the poet depicts.

In this peaceful and elegant music, you can clearly hear what you learn from the poet: mid-night, moon light, the bell from the temple, a lonely boat in the cold river. Everything reveals the poet's loneliness and homesickness in the late autumn.

Mu Guiying Takes the Command is the first Chinese symphonic work rearranged from Peking Opera. Deng Zong'an, Liu Yutang, Zhong Kongfan and Yang Muyun created the work together in 1959 and introduced the dramatic story of the female general Mu in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) to Westerners through the classic symphonic music.

As for the Australian piece, Constantine Koukias composed it on commission of the CNSO. Conductor Li said he would not talk much about it before its world premiere on October 7.

Koukias is the co-founder and artistic director of Australian contemporary opera company IHOS Opera Experimental Music Theatre Troupe.

Koukias has produced five large scale operas for IHOS in its decade of existence. All were composed, designed and directed by him.

Besides designing sets and directing dramas, Koukias is also a composer and flutist. And his chamber work "Incantation" and "Echoi I" and "Echoi II" have been performed in Frankfurt, Florence, New York and Jerusalem.

Just recently, his "Incantation II" for soprano won the International Valentine Bucchi Vocal Prize in Rome.

(China Daily September 23, 2002)