Lai, Yen-Ping

Violinist who graduated from the F. Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in 2003 and went on to become a member of the Gaia String Quartet, the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, and the Pacific Symphony.

In August 2008, the Pacific Symphony collaborated with the American Ballet Theatre in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in a performance of Etudes by Harald Lander and Knudaage Rissager and “Rabbit and Rogue” by Danny Elfman and Twyla Tharp. They joined forces again in November 2009 for a mounting of Adolphe Adam’s Giselle.

In June 2010, the Gaia String Quartet gave a series of recitals of music by Johannes Brahms, Franz Joseph Haydn and Robert Schumann at Ascension Lutheran Church, Irvine Presbyterian Church and Mission Valley Free Methodist Church in California.

Target sponsored Symphony in the Cities in July and August 2010, a mini-tour with stops in Heritage Park, Pittsford Park, and Village Green. The Pacific Symphony teamed up with vocalists Sean Ghazi and Joni Fukuda-Prado in a program that comprised Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do” and “They Say Falling in Love is Wonderful” from Annie Get Your Gun, Georges Bizet’s “Gypsy Song” and “Habanera” from Carmen, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 in F-sharp minor and Hungarian Dance No. 6 in D-flat major, Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No. 8, Alan Jay Lerner’s and Frederick Loewe’s “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, Jacques Offenbach’s “Can-Can” from Orpheus in the Underworld, Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine”, Johann Strauss, Jr.’s “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” and “Thunder and Lightning Polka”, and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers”, Op. 71a from The Nutcracker.

On 16^th October 2010, the Pacific Symphony scared up some fun with Halloween Goes Hollywood, featuring music from the Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars films.

They presented the Nutcracker for Kids, an abridged rendition of the ballet for short attention spans, on 11^th December 2010.

In January 2011, they were joined by conductor and violinist Pinchas Zukerman for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 61, Haydn’s Symphony No. 83 in G minor (“The Hen”) and Igor Stravinsky’s Concerto in D.

Pianist Arnaldo Cohen and violinist Ray Chen were the guest soloists with they performed Beethoven’ s Concerto No. 3 in C minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 37, Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major for Piano and Orchestra, Romance No. 1 in G major for Violin and Orchestra, 40 and Romance No. 2 in F major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 50 on 4^thFebruary 2011.

On 5^th February 2011, they supplied the music as the Magic Circle Mime Company acted out Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.

Joseph Horowitz, Jenny O’Hara and Nick Ullett were the actors and the Nobertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey provided the vocals when they produced Cathedrals of Sound: A Journey of the Spirit. The first half consisted of Horowitz’s Bruckner the Man and A Journey of the Spirit: The concert culminated with Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor.

On 12^th March 2011, they presented Beethoven’s Blockbusters, which included selections from the master’s symphonies, although the concert opened with the first movements of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 and Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Orchestra in G major, RV 151.

The Pacific Chorale were on-hand for Daughter of Light on 17^th April 2011, when they performed “Plorate filii Israel” from Jephte by Giacomo Carissimi, Requiem in D minor, Op. 48 by Gabriel Faure, and the southern California premiere of The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang.

In May 2011, Caminos Flamencos kicked up their heels to Bolero by Maurice Ravel and dances from The Three-Cornered Hat by Manuel de Falla. The evening began with highlights from Iberia by Isaac Albeniz and “Tzigane” by Ravel, with solo violinist Philippe Quint.

They offered up another expurgated Tchaikovsky ballet, Sleeping Beauty, on 7^th May 2011.

On 27^th-29^th May 2011, they were joined by the Royal Danish Ballet for the full-length Napoli of August Bournonville.

“Yujawang Plays Rachmaninoff” was the selling point of their concerts that took place on 2^nd-4^th June 2011. The centerpiece of the evenings was Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, although they opened with Bohuslav Martinu’s Memorial to Lidice, H. 296 and closed with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47.

On 22^nd-24^th September 2011, Sarah Chang was the guest soloist for Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64, although again this featured work was strongly supported by Hector Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, James Newton Howard’s I Would Plant a Tree, and Ottorino Respighi’s The Pines of Rome.

The Pacific Symphony united with the San Francisco Ballet for a series of performances in September and October 2011 of Bizet’s Symphony in C, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, and Tchaikovsky’s String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70 (Souvenir of Florence).

On 22^nd October 2011, they presented A Halloween Whodunit which included “The Composer is Dead” by Lemony Snicket and Nathaniel Stookey, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the finale of Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 by Beethoven.

They reunited with the Pacific Chorale for John Alexander’s 40^th Anniversary Gala Concert on 6^th November 2011. The eclectic program included John Alexander’s “Musica”, Beethoven’s “Christ on the Mount of Olives”, Op. 85, Brahms’ “Schicksalslied”, Bruckner’s Psalm 150 in C, WAB 38, Gerald Finzi’s “For St. Cecilia”, Op. 30, Jake Heggie’s “Seeking Higher Ground: Bruce Springsteen Rocks New Orleans, April 30, 2006 and Morten Lauridsen’s “Ubi Caritas et Amor”.

On 17^th-19^th November 2011, Jenny O’Hara and Nick Ullett took the stage again as the symphony offered up an all-Mahler affair that opened with a staged reading of I Beg You to Be Truthful – The Marriage of Gustav and Alma Mahler: A Self Portrait in Letters. The musical portion of the evening consisted of Ruckert-Lieder with pianist Hye-Yong Kim and baritone Christopheren Nomura and Symphony No. 9 in D major.

He performs “Amazing Grace” here with the Gaia String Quartet…

Sources:

Lai, Yen-Ping

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