Voicing Music: German and Taiwanese

Chicago Symphony Orchestra violist Youming Chen, mezzo-soprano I-Chiao Shih, who has been a resident artist at Theater Ulm in Germany for 15 years, and Cornell faculty pianist Vera H. P. Hsu present Voicing Music: German and Taiwanese. This concert brings together German Romantic masterpieces by Brahms, Schumann, and Liszt with works by contemporary Taiwanese composers, creating a vivid dialogue between two rich musical worlds. Through songs and chamber music, the program explores how language shapes music—how the sounds, rhythms, and emotional colors of German and several languages of Taiwan, including Rukai, Kanakanavu, Hoklo (Taiwanese), and Hakka, can inspire melody, phrasing, and musical expression. Before the concert, Prof. Jennifer Kuo of Cornell’s Department of Linguistics will give a public talk introducing Taiwan’s remarkable linguistic diversity, including Rukai, Kanakanavu, and other Austronesian languages.