New York audiences treated to sounds of Chinese instruments

A New York audience enjoyed a delightful blend of modern and contemporary music by an orchestra and four soloists who played the traditional Chinese instruments erhu, pipa and sheng at a concert at Lincoln Center on Sunday.

The annual The Sound of Spring concert, now in its sixth year, took place over two days (Jan 25-26) at the Fisher Center at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and at the Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, to commemorate the Chinese New Year.

"I like that's it's classical music with Chinese instruments involved. It's very good," Dmitry Shlykov, an audience member originally from Russia but now living in New York told China Daily. "It's very different from Western classical music."

Maestro Jindong Cai led Orchestra Now and demonstrated the talents of solo artists: Wang Lei, professor of sheng at the Central Conservatory of Music; Yan Guowei, winner of the Golden Prize at the China Music Golden Bell Award for erhu; Zhang Jingli, a renowned percussionist and professor at the Central Conservatory of Music; and Bard College graduate student and pipa virtuoso Jinou Anastasia Dong.