Monday, April 28, 2003

We've all just about recovered from the British Council's stylish welcome party for the quartet down in the Taipei Artist Village. We had fun and games performing outside in the courtyard, clothes pegs were in order but the page turns added a certain 'angst' to the music. Everyone had a great time and many new friends were made and old ones resumed. A big thank you to Neil Webb, Tracy and Vanessa for putting on such an excellent event.

Down in the steamy south of Kaosiung. The performance last night at SYS University was sold out (1,100 tickets) but in attendence were only 250 hardy folk, the fear of SARS had finally struck. Their enthusiastic response couldn't be dampened (even as many wore surgical masks - a freaky sight to look out on) as the quartet presented a programme featuring works by Torke, Glass, Brady, The Soft Machine, Jenkins and for the first time in Taiwan, Alaric I or II by gavin Bryars. Oh the joy of performing in a good acoustic (concert hall).

SARS has also mean that the performance scheduled for the 9th May 2003 in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Academy Of Music and Arts will now have to be re- scheduled to a later date possibly in the autumn of 2003 or spring 2004.

Negotiations are under way for the quartet to work with The Contemporary Chamber Orchestra Of Taipei, we are looking at commissioning both UK and Taiwanese composers to present a performance programme in 2005.

The press coverage has been amazing during this tour. I've had an open line to the only English language radio station in Taiwan (ICRT) with Rick Monday giving amazing promotion to the quartet's tour. Last night I spotted the quartet making the news an Taiwanese TV, The Taipei Times and South China News have all given major column inches to the quartet plus also the Chinese only language papers. I really feel that the UK is being put on the map here with the work of the quartet, a good thing for both UK business and obviously cementing the quartet's future performing opportunities in Taiwan.

Tonight we head north to the tropic of cancer and Tainan, further reporst as we go.
Cheers Chris C in Kaosiung.
posted by Chris at 4:46 AM