Good morning China Daily readers! Want to jazz up your Chinese New Year celebrations with art and music? Check out our roundup of exhibitions and concerts in major cities happening during the most important Chinese festival!
Exhibitions
The Palace Museum after the first snow in 2020. [Photo/Official website of the Palace Museum]
Celebrate Chinese New Year at the Palace Museum
The Palace Museum, one of China's most beloved places for ushering in the Chinese New Year, will keep its doors wide open during the Spring Festival holiday with a roster of great shows in store for everyone to have an artsy and memorable Spring Festival holiday.
Shows that cannot be missed on your visit include The Fortune and Longevity of Sumeru, showcasing 280 cultural relics including Tibetan Buddhist statues, thangka paintings and other items from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery and the Palace Museum, and Embracing the Olympics Winter Games Ice and Snow Art Exhibition, displaying 176 artworks featuring winter sports including installations, photography and sculptures.
The museum will be closed on Chinese New Year's Eve (Jan 24) and will stay open from Jan 25-30.
If you go:
8:30-16:30, No 4 Jingshan Qianjie, Dongcheng district, Beijing 北京市东城区景山前街4号,故宫博物院
Visitors view a bronzeware at the New Year special exhibition on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]
Spice up Spring Festival holiday with a tour of National Museum of China
To celebrate the Year of the Rat, the National Museum of China opened a New Year special exhibition Thursday, showcasing 37 selected works with auspicious motifs from the museum's collection as well as more than 120 Spring Festival couplets and paintings. More interactive activities are said to be held to let visitors enjoy the holiday atmosphere more.
In addition to this show, more than 20 other exhibitions are open to the public during the holiday, including High Mountains, Broad Paths, a large-scale exhibition elaborating on the formation and evolution of Confucianism and its extensive influence; A Literary Peak of Eternity, an exhibition centered on the eternal charm of the 18th-century Chinese masterpiece Dream of the Red Chamber; and Heavenly Beauty, Emerging Rays, a display of nearly 200 objects revealing the emergence of pottery-making in Northwest China’s Gansu province some 8,000 years ago, and celebrating the advanced civilizations that produced the pottery and thrived along the Yellow River.
The museum will be closed on Chinese New Year's Eve (Jan 24) and will stay open from Jan 25-30.
If you go:
9:00-17:00, No 16 East Chang'an Avenue, Dongcheng district, Beijing (on the east side of Tian'anmen Square) 010-65116400北京东城区东长安街16号天安门广场东侧, 国家博物馆
A Tribute to Donors will present a selection of more than 850 works from the donations National Art Museum of China has received, from as early as 1961 and throughout 2019. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]
National Art Museum hosts exhibition of donated art to celebrate Chinese New Year
The National Art Museum in Beijing is staging a grand exhibition to pay tribute to its donors, whose donations account for nearly 30 percent of the museum's 110,000 artworks.
A Tribute to Donors, gathering more than 850 works from the donations the museum has received, from as early as 1961 and throughout 2019, is also meant to offer visitors a visual treat during Chinese New Year celebrations.
Works on show include classic Chinese ink paintings and calligraphy, oil works, lithographs, sculptures and photographs.
The show offers a glimpse of the brilliance of ancient Chinese art, traces the evolution of Chinese art in the 20th century, and reviews the cultural exchanges between China and the world.
The museum will be closed at 12:00 on Chinese New Year's Eve (Jan 24) and will stay open from Jan 25-30.
If you go:
No 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng district, 010-64001476北京市东城区五四大街一号,中国美术馆
A gilded statue of the fortune god holding a mythological mouse that can bring fortune to worshippers, is on view at the Shanghai Museum. [Photo/Official Website of the Shanghai Museum]
Shanghai Museum show highlights relics with rat designs
Although rats contribute to a good share of derogatory language in most countries, they somehow have stolen the first position of the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac and are often associated with wealth and prosperity in ancient Chinese culture.
To mark the Year of the Rat, the Shanghai Museum is hosting a special exhibition, featuring five ancient Chinese relics with rat motifs, to celebrate the auspicious messages carried by the often misunderstood creatures.
The exhibition runs through Feb 23.
If you go:
9:00-17:00, No 201 Renmin Dadao, Huangpu district, Shanghai 上海市黄浦区人民大道201号, 上海博物馆
Conductor Dariusz Mikulski for the 2020 New Year Concert staged by the Vienna Artist Orchestra in Shanghai [Photo/hans-hoyer.com]
Music
2020 New Year Concert from Vienna
A symphony orchestra from Vienna will descend on Shanghai this Saturday to stage the 2020 New Year concert, giving locals a treat of classical music at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center.
Under the baton of Dariusz Mikulski, the Vienna Artist Orchestra will perform a mix of pieces familiar to Chinese audiences, including Chinese folk song Jasmine Flower and Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube Waltz.
If you go:
19:30, Jan 18, No. 425 Dingxiang Road, Pudoong New Area, Shanghai 021-68541234上海市浦东新区丁香路425号, 上海东方艺术中心
Book cover of a biography of Chinese folk musician Wang Luobin by his son Wang Haicheng. [Photo/showstart.com]
In a faraway place: a concert of West China folk songs
A group of Chinese singers will gather on Jan 26 at the Beijing Theater, singing the most popular folk songs, which were collected and re-arranged, or composed by composer Wang Luobin (1913-96) when travelling among ethnic groups in West China in the 1930s-40s.
Under the baton of veteran singer and conductor Feng Qiusheng, the Chorus of the Chinese Musicians Association will sing along with Cheng Zhi, Wang Jing, Xiong Qingcai, Cui Rui and Liang Junge at the Chinese New Year concert.
Years of Burning Passion: A concert that seals off the holiday season
On Jan 30, the last day of the Chinese New Year holidays, the China National Center for the Performing Arts will present a concert with a mixed program of well-known folk songs, Peking opera tunes, pop songs and revolutionary songs from the 1930s-50s.
Under the baton of veteran singer and conductor Feng Qiusheng, the Chorus of the Chinese Musicians Association will sing along with Cheng Zhi, Cui Rui, Zhang Wei, Song Zhequan, Chen Suwei, Pan Shuzhen, Jiang Jiaqiang, Liu Chunxi and Wang Jing at the Chinese New Year concert.
If you go:
19:30, Jan 30. 010-66550000. The China National Center for the Performing Art, No. 2, West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng district, Beijing 北京市西城区西长安街2号国家大剧院
A scene from the Oscar-winning film
Green Book features pianist Don Shirley. [Photo/Douban.com]
Enjoy music from Oscar classics at this symphony concert
Want to relieve the fond memories of watching classic Oscar-winning films?
Here is a better way to satisfy your craving because you can listen to a whole orchestra perform scores in sync with your favorite movie as performed in the original motion picture!
Under the baton of Chinese conductor Fan Tao, the Accent Symphony Orchestra will give you an audio-visual feast featuring tunes from Green Book, La La Land, Braveheart and Life is Beautiful, among many other classic films.
If you go:
19:15, Jan 29, No. 425 Dingxiang Road, Pudoong New Area, Shanghai 021-68541234上海市浦东新区丁香路425号, 上海东方艺术中心
