San Francisco Symphony celebrates Spring Festival

The San Francisco Symphony on Saturday celebrated the Year of the Pig with a vibrant concert for an audience of nearly 2,800 American and overseas Chinese music fans.

Held at the Louise Davies Symphony Hall, the concert started with a cheerful, jubilant opening vignette set to David Byrne’s main title theme music from The Last Emperor as dozens of members of the San Francisco-based Dragon Horse Lion Dance Association danced with red lanterns on their hands along the aisles.

The two-hour concert was preceded with three “happy lions” dancing outside the concert hall.

The San Francisco Symphony presented the Spring Festival Overture composed by famous Chinese composer Li Huanzhi, which was inspired by Chinese folk songs but incorporates a distinctive Western flavor.

Next was the Butterfly Lovers Concerto, a violin masterpiece composed in the late 1950s by two well-known Chinese composers He Zhanhao and Chen Gang. It is based on the touching Chinese folk legend, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, which is in the Romeo and Juliet mold.

Played by emerging violin star Angelo Xiang Yu, the violin piece was greeted with thunderous applause.

In the second half, the San Francisco Symphony performed a popular Chinese love song, Jasmine Flower. It was adapted by famous contemporary Chinese composer Tan Dun for use during the medal ceremony at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.