Orchestra begins Happy Chinese New Year celebrations in Munich

A group of nearly 100 artists from the China National Traditional Orchestra staged a grand concert at the Deutsches Theater in Munich on Jan 31, a, kicking off the 2018 Happy Chinese New Year celebrations in Germany.

The concert, themed after the Silk Road, was a major event organized by China's Ministry of Culture to promote Chinese Lunar New Year overseas.

Mao Jingqiu, Chinese consul general in Munich and Chen Ping, cultural counselor of the Chinese Embassy to Germany attended the concert along with other Chinese and German officials.

Under the baton of conductor Chen Xieyang, the orchestra presented an extraordinary feast of traditional Chinese music. The concert featured some of the orchestra's representative works and its newly composed musical pieces, including Hometown featuring gu zheng (Chinese zither) and an ensemble, The Battle between Chu and Han, a concerto featuring double pi pa (a four-stringed Chinese instrument), and The Moon over a Fountain for er hu (a two-string bowed Chinese instrument) and an ensemble.

The concert drew rounds of enthusiastic applause from the audience and lasted for nearly two hours.