White Horse Orchestra

While in China Shaoxing we had the opportunty to visit the other Uni in the city to hear the above orchestra. The White Horse Orchestra is from Melbourne Australia. http://www.whitehorseorchestra.org.au/China%20Gallery.htm (There are photos here)
 The menfolk declined the offer so just S and I went along with two young students for "our"  uni. Our friend and contact from school had got the tickets from her friend who works at Wen Li. We think that tickets in Oz would have been around a hundred dollars.

Shaoxing Uni or Wen Li as it is known is more an Arts uni where as ours Yue xiu is a Language uni.

We were a bit early but on our urging to the girls we went in and took our seats, following the girls up stairs and then back again. Finally S said to them show us the tickets which they did and S and I found our seats, it wasn't difficult but it does seem that Chinese people have difficulty in finding seat numbers. This has been evident at many times and in many places, trains, buses, planes and now concert halls.

There were two aisles and on the floor at either end of the seats was a large letter, we needed F, I know it was at each end as we have been up both. each seat had a cover over the top with a decent sized number printed on the back. I had 19 and all the way down in front of me I could see the number 19, very easy to find! Every Chinese person who came in walked down their row and then stopped and peered over the back of the seat to see if they had the right number, many of them found they were in the wrong row as well. It was entertaining I was waiting to see if anyone could get to their seats without the peering over. I did see one couple who did and then I realized that they were a foreign couple that I had meet last time we were there.

At 7pm, the due time, the curtain went up (they have difficulty in finding seats but always on time)  and there on stage was the orchestra probably about 60 strong and mostly retired looking, I assumed that because of the grey hair. Boy could they play.

Through out the program four teachers from the uni sang opera with the orchestra, (in Italian)it was stunning and very impressive. The uni orchestra also played for a set which meant the whole stage had to be cleared of instruments and others brought on. The Uni used quite traditional instruments, some I had seen before, others were new to me.

Twice the Grand piano was moved to the centre stage, it was massive and took eight students to move it into position. I had not seen one before S said that it was a Grand, usually see baby Grand but not the big daddy one.

It was a real highlight and an honour to be given tickets to such a performance. Our students took a taxi and escorted us home, not sure that they enjoyed it as much s we did, they both looked very tired and had to get up for school the next morning.