2024 is the Year of the Dragon – the Wood Dragon, to be precise. New Jersey Symphony held their annual Lunar New Year celebration on Saturday evening, February 3, 2024 in nearly the entirety of Prudential Hall at NJPAC and the susurrus of the crowd where East meets West was electric! It will be 60 years from now when the Year of the Wood Dragon happens, and officially it begins February 10.
Pre show festivities included a lovely top tier VIP reception while artists in a cultural exchange from the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Center, New Jersey’s sister province in China. One floor down, Sugar Painting and Sugar Figure artists as well as the articulate and articulated Taishun Puppet show entranced onlookers. One of the puppeteers, who has been an artist in her craft for 45 years, handed me a beautiful puppet with a working fan! The meticulously crafted figure moved in a most human way in the artist’s expert hands, yet even a novice like me could experience the grace of movement. My respect for the artists grew that much more as they danced and flirted and gave us the flavor of a different culture.
On the main lobby level, there was expert and colorful Rice Dough Sculpture, Chinese Calligraphy from Spring Festival Scrolls and a Lucky Photo Booth where families and friends were queueing up for a snap. Performances on a small stage in the lobby brought big applause with artists like Emily Yang with her Guzheng solo, a stringed instrument, on Spring Coming to Lhasa and the Children’s Chorus from Starry Arts Group lifting their voices just to name two. There was a fashion show, instrumentalists and more and then it was time for the concert.
It has become a tradition since Xian Zhang first initiated the Lunar New Year celebration for Edison Chinese School’s Dragon Team to open the event. Acrobatics and antics were the order of the day as the dragons of all sizes leapt and danced with a sylphlike young woman. Batting their eyelashes at her, and us, the dragons drew laughter and breathlessness at their energy and skill. Guest Conductor Yue Bao hails from The Curtis Institute of Music, and her world-class expertise was evident in her grace and command of her medium. This concert marked her debut with New Jersey Symphony and she lead off with Li Huanzhi’s Spring Festival Overture, with its evocative folk flavor, moving through composer Xinghai and the “Yellow River Boatman’s Song” from the Yellow River Concerto with the sweeping lushness a perfect followup to the Overture’s joyous, happy energy.
Next up was Ravel’s “Allegramente” from Piano Concerto in G featuring Tony Siqi Yun, a gifted piano soloist whose clarity was exceeded only by the beauty of his phrasing and expert dynamics. The glissando followed by the blue-note recitative and jazz flavor told the tale of jazz-to-come. Then, a brief moment before Ruo Huang’s selections from Folk Songs for Orchestra gave us the Ming Dynasty’s “Flower Drum Song from Feng Yang” followed by “The Girl from Da Ban City” that is a favorite for carriage drivers to sing. From there, we reel’d through the Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances and Verdi’s “Va Pensiero” featured the Peking University Alumni Chorus. The traditional “Jasmine Flower Song” inspired Puccini for Turandot and the modal beauty makes for pensive ruminations. Zhou Tian’s “Gift” rounded us out with a final chorus of Gong xi, gong xi – Happy New Year to all! February 10 is the kickoff and if this celebration is any indication, it will be a banner year!
Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with more concertizing by New Jersey Symphony. Your experiences are waiting https://www.njsymphony.org.