Music Confucius Institute

04/01/2021

Dear friends

Music Confucius Institute will close permanently on 31 December 2020. Many of you have followed us on our musical journey since we started in 2012, some by creating meaningful activities with us, others by participating in our many concerts and activities, and others through our social media platforms.

We've decided to keep our social media accessible but inactive, so that we can, together with our friends and partners, reflect on the work that we've done. The Royal Danish Academy of Music affirms the importance of bringing cultures together through music, and this may also serve as an inspiration for future collaboration projects with new partners.

18/12/2020

// Recording of "Song of the Burial of the Flowers" //
Back in 2017, our former students Hugo Sellers (piano), Kehan Zhang (erhu), and Mathilde Rossignol (singing) recorded by Tonmeister India Hooi the Chinese piece "Song of the Burial of the Flowers" ( 葬花吟 ). The text is a poem from the famous Chinese novel "A Dream of the Red Mansions" and is about the heroine Lin Daiyu's struggles between life and death, love and hate.

Listen to the beautiful recording here:

Provided to YouTube by TuneCore Song of the Burial of the Flowers · Mathilde Rossignol, Kehan Zhang & Hugo Selles Song of the Burial of the Flowers ℗ 2020...

16/12/2020

// Video recording of Xu Ziling and The Scandinavian Guitar Duo //
This Autumn, Xu Ziling and The Scandinavian Guitar Duo have been touring around with John Frandsen's "Drømdæ Mik Æn Drøm" for erhu and two guitars, and now they have recorded the piece. We are really looking forward to seeing the final video 🙏

Here you can read some of John Frandsen's own words about the piece:
"Drømdæ mik æn drøm" is the oldest fragment of notated music in the Nordic countries. It is found on the bottom of one of the pages of Codex Runicus - a transcript from around 1300 containing mainly legal stuff, e.g. Skånske Lov. The scriptor seems to have felt tempted to use the empty space of the page for something more important than law paragraphs...!
The opening phrase was used for many years as a pause signal in the Danish Radio. I was fascinated by the idea of bringing a piece of ancient Nordic folk music together with the wonderful and characteristic sound of a Chinese folk instrument."

09/12/2020

// Concert at The Danish Music Museum //
Our erhu musician, Xu Ziling, played a soloist concert at The Danish Music Museum at the end of November, where she played not only on the erhu but additionally on five more traditional Chinese instruments. The concert was a journey through the landscape of China, and you could easily hear how the sound of the music changed as the origins of the folk music did.

04/12/2020

// Recording with Randi Laubek //
Two years ago, Danish singer-songwriter Randi Laubek sat in the audience at one of MCI's concerts and got the inspiration for a collaboration between her and our MCI musicians, and together with Tonmeister students from The Royal Danish Academy of Music, we recorded an album of original songs. The album will be out next year in February.
Watch the video with English or Chinese subtitles, go to our Youtube channel.

27/11/2020

MCI Chinese Timbres Thursday 26th November
At the concert yesterday shined a spotlight on the voice. It is with our voices that we express our feelings, engage in dialogue, and communicate with each other and the world. In the past year, we have had an exciting collaboration with the Danish singer-songwriter Randi Laubek, and the results of this collaboration were presented at this concert. The concert also featured world premieres of four songs by Chinese composers from Central Conservatory of Music, ensemble works for guitars, erhus, and mixed ensembles.

Due to Covid-19 and severe travel restrictions, we have made the difficult decision to close MCI at the end of 2020. Therefore, with this concert, we would like to thank all our cooperation partners, artists, and friends. RDAM will continue to collaborate and create together across boundaries. China is an important part of our international collaboration. It is still our goal to be a part of cultural encounters and cultural exchanges.

MCI wish you all a wonderful December and hope we can cross borders and start reconnecting the world in the new year.

26/11/2020

🐲 // Chinese Timbres // 🐲
The concert tonight is sold out, but if you didn't get hold of a ticket you can watch it online via the livestream link here: https://youtu.be/8ONw6hx-rXs
We hope to see you online 😄🐲