Dear all,
The lecture titled The Palace of Lasting Life: How Music Makes a Literary Classic will be hosted on November 21th (Tuesday) at 15:30 in the Library Room 305, welcome!
Lecturer: XU Peng, Associate Professor, Institute of Humanities, ShanghaiTech University
Flautist: QIAN Yin, National Top-Ranked Musician, Chief Flautist, Shanghai Kunqu Company
Singer: YU Bin, National Top-Ranked Performer, Shanghai Kunqu Company
Summary: In The Palace of Lasting Life, how does the playwright Hong Sheng modify the famous emperor’s romance to fit in the literary template of the scholar-beauty chuanqi genre? How do the playwright’s bold inventions negotiate with the strong literary conventions? The answer lies in Hong’s ability to exploit all the possibilities of the musical practices of Kunqu opera in drama. He successfully replaces the traditional, if not banal, material love token with an intangible one—the imperial lovers’ shared interest and expertise in (Kunqu) music. This workshop takes a hybrid form, combining Professor XU Peng’s lecture with the performances of Mr. QIAN Yin and Ms. YU Bin, two top-ranked performers nationally in China and winners of multiple awards and honors. It is at once a concert and demonstration.