Swiss Music Night 2023 音樂瑞士之夜
Jubilee Concerts 十年有禧
10 Years Swiss Music Night in Taiwan
Oct.15 Sun. 14:30 高雄衛武營表演廳 Weiwuying Recital Hall
Oct.16 Mon.19:30 台北國家音樂廳 National Concert Hall
The "Swiss Music Night" is marking its tenth anniversary milestone by annually celebrating the friendship through joining world-class musicians from Switzerland and Taiwan.
Since 2013 the Swiss Music Night established itself as an important and sustainable platform of cultural exchange. Outstanding musicians and composers from both countries have engaged in a wonderful dialogue, which ultimately resulted in unforgettable concert experiences.
For the this year jubilee two of Switzerland's most successful cultural ambassadors, world-known recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger, acclaimed Swiss violinist Sebastian Bohren and distinguished Swiss-Taiwanese cellist Pi-Chin Chien will join Taiwan's outstanding musicians Jimmy Hsueh on the violin, Chen-Hung Ho on the viola, Yi-Hsuan Chiu on the double bass, Mei-Ling Chien on the piano and Chia-hsuan Tsai on the hapsichord with a spectacular musical journey from the Baroque to the present day in the National Concert Hall in Taipei and the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Weiwuying.
The Swiss Music Night 2022
«Sounding Confluence»
A varied program to celebrate the friendship between Taiwan and Switzerland
After a program change the Swiss Music Night 2022 featured a program with the focus on great musical moments reflecting the element water in music and enables on the same time a wonderful encounter of internationally celebrated Swiss and Taiwanese musicians. The first half is dedicated to a very special project of awarded Swiss composer Fabian Müller reflecting his love to Taiwan which became like a second home for him. Inspired by a Taiwanese tea master he tried to transcend the complex character of some exquisite teas into music.
The result was a very successful album with these compositions for two cellos. The Swiss Music Night concerts 2022 will begin with this special music performed by his wife, the internationally acclaimed Taiwanese-Swiss cellist
Pi-Chin Chien 簡碧青 and highly respected Taiwanese cellist and professor at TNUA Chu-Chuan Liu 劉姝嫥.
The second half of the evening with acclaimed Taiwanese pianist Chun-Chieh Yen 嚴俊傑 is dedicated to a Swiss-related program spanning a wide spectrum, from romantic music to Swiss contemporary music. Matching the theme of the evening it starts with Chopins «Barcarole» followed by Maurice Ravels (it is rather unknown that Ravels father was Swiss) famous works «Jeux d‘eau» and «Ondine».
After a brilliant new work by Swiss composer Gion Antoni Derungs, the fulminant finale will be Rachmaninoff's 2nd sonata. Rachmaninoff had a very warm relationship to Switzerland and to the lake of Lucerne. He has built On the shore of the lake a house in the Bauhaus style where he lived and worked in the summer for seven years.
The Swiss Music Night 2020
Beyond the Horizon - Homage to Sir Yehudi Menuhin
At home all over the world, Sir Yehudi Menuhin had a particularly warm relationship with Switzerland. After moving to his home in the famous village Gstaad in 1957 he was granted Swiss citizenship in 1970. Here, in this spectacular landscape surrounded by mountains of the Bernese Oberland, he found the perfect place to start an international music festival and an academy according to his ideas.
His commitment to leading young people to music was tireless throughout his life, and his knowledge and experience inspired his many students. The well-known taiwanese violinist Ming-Feng Hsin was discovered and promoted by Menuhin as a young boy. He and his sister Hsing-Chwen studied at the Menuhin School in England, and Hsing-Chwen became a piano partner of Sir Yehudi Menuhin's in chamber music concerts.
The "Swiss Music Night" 2020 was a homage to this great musician of the 20th century and is all about works with a strong connection to Switzerland. Two brilliant piano trios by Swiss composer Paul Juon (1872-1940) as well as the famous Piano Trio op. 66 C-minor by Felix Mendelssohn were part of the program. Long before Sir Yehudi Menuhin discovered the Bernese Oberland for himself, another child prodigy, Felix Mendelssohn, became a fervent admirer of the area. He made no fewer than six journeys to Switzerland and was interested in Swiss folk songs and even used them in his string symphonies.
Ernest Bloch was inspired by the Swiss landscape in his early works. For Yehudi Menuhin he wrote two Suites for solo violin and the one-movement piece "Abodah" for violin and piano. The "Tour de Suisse" for violin and piano by Fabian Müller, begins in four movements an enjoyable musical journey throughout Switzerland and its four language regions by taking up elements of the respective folk music.
The Swiss Music Night 2019
The Swiss Music Night 2019 presents «Sound of Switzerland» Vol. 2
It was a fascinating musical journey throughout varied styles of Swiss Folk music and the presentation of a 100-years musical friendship between Switzerland and Japan.
Switzerland has a vivd and rich tradition of Folk music. Through a warm relationship and tourism between Switzerland and Japan an increasing scene of outstanding musicians in Japan started to sing Swiss Yodel-singing and started to play instrumental Swiss Folkmusic on highest level.
In this concert the distinguished Folk musicians from Switzerland «Appenzeller Echo» and Fabian Müller met the celebrated Japanese Yodel-singer Keiko Ito with her band „Amsle Quantett“. The nine musicians on stage were presenting a colorful, vivid and fascinating program showing original Swiss Folkmusic with a great variety of instruments and styles, as well as the astonishing musical developments of this music in Japan.
National Day Celebration 2019
in Switzerland
The Délégation culturelle et économique de Taipei hosted a reception and a concert at 10th of October 2019 in the grand hall of the Casino Bern to celebrate the 108th National Day of the Republic of China (Taiwan) with more than 200 guests from Swiss political, economic and cultural circles, Diplomats, media professionals, overseas Taiwanese and international students.
After a reception there was a concert entitled "From the Alps to the Pacific -
a musical journey". The Swiss-based cellist Pi-Chin Chien and her husband, composer Fabian Müller, were entrusted with the direction and artistic design of the concert. The concert showed similarities between the Swiss yodel-singing and the singing of the indigenous Taiwanese people. In addition to the cello duo of the couple, the program also included performances by the Taiwanese folk singer Suming Rupi and the Swiss Appenzeller band Alderbuebe.
Due to the unique musical connection between Taiwan and Switzerland, the guests immersed themselves in the beauty of the Swiss and Taiwanese sounds as well as in the unique mountain landscapes of both countries through simultaneously projected images.
The Swiss Music Night 2018
The Swiss Music Night 2018 – 5th edition „Sound of Switzerland“ Vol. 1
was presenting a musical tour throughout the varied landscapes of Switzerland - with Switzerland’s most distinguished representatives of traditional Swiss Folk music Nadja Räss, Andreas Gabriel, Markus Flückiger, Bernhard Betschart, Nicolas Senn , Primin Huber and Fabian Müller, the program follow musically the "Grand Tour of Switzerland" with traditional and new Folk music.
It was a program showing the varied Swiss Folk traditions in all its facets. From Appenzell's striking music with violin and hammered dulcimer to the virtuosic Ländlermusik of central Switzerland with Schwyzerörgeli (typical Swiss accordion) as well as the vivid music from Ticino and the french part of Switzerland the concert offers a unique experience of exciting and original music following the "Grand Tour of Switzerland".
The typical Swiss Yodeling was also part of the program. Nadja Räss is currently the best-known yodel singer in Switzerland and Bernhard Betschart captivates the audience worldwide with his very archaic way of yodeling. The concert showed the "Sound of Switzerland" at its highest level.
The Swiss Music Night 2017
The Swiss Music Night 2017 was presenting internationally acclaimed Swiss cellists Thomas Grossenbacher, David Riniker, Yves Savary and Pi-Chin Chien in collaboration with the Symphony Orchestra of the Tainan National University of Arts.
The varied program was including some of the most well-known classical pieces for cello and orchestra by Tschaikowsky, Dvorak and Bruch as well as a Fantasy on the Taiwanese Folk song „Jasmine in June“.
In the symphonic concerts there was performed the World-premiere of the
„La Folia-Variations“ in the version for large symphony orchestra by Swiss composer Fabian Müller .
The „Swiss Music Night“ 2017 was a collaboration with the Tainan National University of Arts TNNUA and its symphony orchestra. It had also an important educational effect including two days master-classes by the invited Swiss soloists, giving their knowledge and experiences to the younger generation. The master-classes were open for outstanding students and have been held in public for the audience.
The Swiss Music Night 2016
In 2016 the Swiss Music Night was collaborating for the first time with large orchestra, the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra NTSO.
It presented internationally known Swiss and Taiwanese Soloists playing the masterpiece “Episodes Concertante“, a triple-concerto for violin, cello, piano and orchestra by late-romantic Swiss composer Paul Juon (1872-1940) (rediscovered and first recorded by Pi-Chin Chien – It was the Asian Premiere!), as well as the 1st Symphony by Johannes Brahms. Brahms had a close relationship to Switzerland and was inspired by the alpine landscapes. His famous 1st Symphony includes in the fourth movement an Alphorn-solo, which Brahms heard in the Swiss Mountains in 1868.
The National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra NTSO was under the guidance of highly distinguished Swiss conductor Kaspar Zehnder. The soloists were Willi Zimmermann, violin, Pi-Chin Chien, cello and Pi-Hsien Chen, piano. The concerts took place at the National Concert Hall, Taipei, the Dadong Art Center, Kaohsiung and the NTSO Concert Hall, Taichung in March 2016.
Visit of Paiwan Children Choir in Switzerland 2016
It is an important concern for the founders of the Swiss Music Night in Taiwan also to introduce Taiwanese culture in Switzerland.
In summer 2016 they brought the award-winning Paiwan Children's Choir «Taiwu Children’s Ancient Ballads Troupe» to the Klangfestival Toggenburg in Switzerland.
A whole week the children from Taiwan under the guidance of Camake sang together with children in Switzerland, and learned songs of each other's culture. A fulminate final concert at the festival was a touching and unforgettable experience for all who were involved, as well as for the audience. Further concerts took place at the Klangfestival as well at the Propstei St. Gerold in Vorarlberg (Austria).
The Swiss Music Night 2015
The 2015 edition was focusing on a unique concert experience, introducing the highly acclaimed Swiss chamber music group the «Zurich Ensemble» consisting of four leading and internationally well-known Swiss musicians. It was a collaboration with Asia Music and Arts (AMA).
The Zurich Ensemble: Fabio Di Casola, clarinet, Kamilla Schatz, violin, Pi-Chin Chien, cello, Benjamin Engeli, piano.
To underline the cultural bridge between Switzerland and Taiwan, an attraction of the Swiss Music Night 2015 was a commissioned work and world premiere of highly distinguished composer Huang-Long Pan 潘皇龍 (Taiwan).
The concerts took place at the National Concert Hall, Taipei, the Dadong Art Center, Kaohsiung and the Steinway Gallery in Singapore including the colorful arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov‘s „Scheherazade“ .
The Swiss Music Night 2013
Founded in collaboration with the Trade Office of Swiss Industries TOSI in Taipei, the very well received first Swiss Music Night took place in the National Concert Hall in Taipei in November 2013.
The Academy of Taiwan Strings with cellist Pi-Chin Chien was featuring a music program with composers, who were inspired by the nature and the landscapes of Switzerland.
Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn was known for his love to Switzerlands mountain landscapes. He traveled several times to Switzerland and involved Swiss Folk songs in his works. In the Swiss Music Night 2013 the two well-known Swiss String Symphonies N. 9 and 11 by Felix Mendelssohn were the frame for two other Swiss works – two premieres by the composers Fabian Müller and Paul Juon.