Orchestra chimes in for celebrations

LONDON - Beatles music with a Chinese flavor will ring out at a concert in Liverpool on Sunday.

The Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra, the oldest and largest ensemble of its kind in Europe, is presenting a "Summer of Love" festival, performing a range of music popular around the world in 1967, the year the Beatles' classic album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released.

With celebrations in Liverpool to mark the 50th anniversary of the album, the award-winning orchestra will perform Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine and She's Leaving Home.

The orchestra will also play classics from China to represent the year, with a song from Fengyang Flower Drum, an album released by the late Teresa Teng, or Deng Lijin, a Taiwanese pop singer who was just 14 at the time.

The orchestra will also play two Jingshen songs, a fusion of classical Cantonese music combined with elements of jazz, swing and ballroom that was popular in Hong Kong at the time.

Orchestra leader Zi Lan Liao said: "We wanted to play our part in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Sergeant Pepper album. All of our members are too young to have experienced the Beatles as a live band, but you cannot come from Liverpool and not be influenced by the Beatles."

"The concert will be a reflection of real history for both young and old. Every piece we play will be from around the same era, a real fusion of music from China and the West."

The orchestra, established in 1982 by Kui Hsuing Li and now run by his daughter, Zi Lan Liao, has performed for Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and has worked with leading orchestras and musicians from all over the world.

Xinhua