Marco Carvalho
Pipa soloist Yang Jing and Hong Kong’s organist Ernesto Mauricio Corpus will give a new meaning to the idea of musical confluence between East and West, when they perform, next Friday, on the premises of St Joseph’s Seminary and Church.
Macau’s finest example of baroque architecture will host the concert “Genuine Friendship – A Mountain Mirrored in a Lake,” organized by the Macau Ricci Institute and Casa Ricci Social Service. The performance, scheduled for 7pm on the 22nd of February, aims to raise donations for both institutions. The money will be used both to support Casa Ricci Social Service and to promote the reconstruction of the Ricci Institute library, ravaged by typhoon Hato two years ago. Father Jaroslaw Duraj told O Clarim: “There’s an important charitable dimension to this concert that is being promoted by the Institute and Casa Ricci. The donations we might receive will be used to rebuild the Ricci Institute library, which was lost two years ago during typhoon Hato, and also to finance the Casa Ricci Social Service activities. This organization serves the disadvantaged and poor both in Macau and in China,” recalled the vice-director of Macau’s Ricci Institute.
With free admission, the concert brings to Macau Special Administrative Region the virtuoso organist Ernesto Mauricio Corpus and Sino-Swiss pipa soloist Yang Jing for a performance that proposes a rare confluence between sacred music and the musical traditions of China and the East: “This concert, on February 22nd, features a unique charity event for the Macau Ricci Institute and the Casa Ricci Social Services that offers, at the same time, a rare opportunity to watch a performance that combines the pipa – a chinese traditional instrument – with the Western organ,” Father Duraj explains.
Born in Manila, Ernesto Maurice Corpus moved to Hong Kong with his family when he was only four years old and it was in the former British colony that he discovered his musical vocation.
Considered one of the world’s finest live-music accompaniment recital performers for classical silent-film presentations, Ernie Corpus won the Grand Prix at the 1992 Yamaha Electone Internacional Festival. A well renowned keyboard player, Mr Corpus has recorded a dozen records and worked with artists like late Anita Mui and entities like the Hong Kong Philarmonic Orchestra. Fluent in Cantonese, Ernie Corpus has recently appeared in two TV Drama series for Hong Kong-TVB Jade as a principal supporting actor.
Mr Corpus will share the stage with Yang Jing, one of the most acclaimed pipa soloists of the world. Born in Mainland China in 1964, Yang started playing when she was only six and six years later, in 1976, she became a member of Chinese Opera ensemble of Henan province. With a degree in music and composition by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Yang worked from 1986 to 1998 as the Pipa Soloist of China Central Traditional Orchestra, before she moved to Switzerland, where she lives since 2000: “Thanks to her intercultural understanding and ability in mastering different styles of music, combining her love for musical traditions of East and West with an innovative spirit of exploration, Yang Jing builds on a vast amalgam of music from both Asian and Western traditions, to create a musical experience that transcends boundaries,” the Ricci Institute writes in a press release.
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