Opera Group to Perform on China Tour
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 1999
Joe Wills
530-898-4143
Opera Group to Perform on China Tour
Music students and faculty from California State University, Chico will celebrate the Opera Workshop’s 40th anniversary by traveling to China next fall to perform at China’s most prestigious conservatories.
Ying Yeh, director of the Opera Workshop and one of China’s best-known opera singers, will lead a group of about 20 music students to China Nov. 18-25. Music department chair James Bankhead will also be part of the contingent, along with other faculty, parents and alumni.
Yeh and the students will perform at China’s top music conservatories in Beijing and Shanghai, as well the Beijing Language and Culture University and the music conservatory in the city of Xi’an, the historic former capital of China.
While visiting the three Chinese cities, the group will take time to see the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, the Terra-Cotta Warriors and other landmarks.
In addition, the group will rendezvous with English professor Frank Li and 15 CSU, Chico students who will be spending the fall semester at the Beijing Language and Culture University. This is the first year of CSU, Chico’s Beijing Semester program.
Yeh said a television station in Beijing is planning to do a news feature about the visit of CSU, Chico students and faculty.
“I don’t think we have ever led a student group like this to China before,” said Yeh. “It is a tremendous opportunity for them to explore a different culture and share our music.”
The students are planning to perform standard opera pieces, American pieces and some Chinese music.
The China trip is open to all CSU, Chico faculty staff, students and alumni. The cost will be $1,595, which includes transportation, lodging and meals for the eight-day trip. For more information about the trip, call 530-898-4082.
Yeh said people in China are embracing classical music more and more. Last year, Puccini’s “Turandot” was produced in China’s Forbidden City, and it was extremely popular, she said.
Yeh, the first opera singer permitted to leave China and perform internationally after the Cultural Revolution, was videotaped earlier this year by a visiting Chinese television crew for a special Chinese New Year broadcast Feb. 16.
The two-and-one-half hour Chinese New Year broadcast, produced and aired by Chinese Central TV, was one of the most-watched programs in China, which has a population of 1.2 billion people.
CSU, Chico’s Opera Workshop, founded in 1959, offers young singers the opportunity to work closely with music faculty and perform a wide range of opera and operetta music. Recent productions have included Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” Puccini’s “La Boheme” and the spring 1999 production of Verdi’s “La Traviata.”
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