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Hither,
Zither and Yon with
Amy Tan & Her Orchestra
by
Ben Fong-Torres
AsianConnections
is proud to present the adventures of Ben Fong-Torres, our Renaissance
man: author, broadcaster, and former senior editor and writer at
Rolling Stone Magazine. This guy's our hero!
Ben
was a featured character in "Almost Famous," the Oscar and Golden
Globe-winning film by Cameron Crowe.
- AC Team
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Amy
Tan
photo credit: Robert Foothorap
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"Gung hay fat choy, and gong hay fa cai," said the jovial conductor,
standing before the San Francisco Symphony and alongside three Chinese
instruments, and welcoming the audience to "A Chinese New Year Celebration
with Amy Tan." The crowd in Davies Symphony Hall laughed at George
Daugherty's brave - and pretty good - try.
"This is a new tradition that I hope will become an annual
event," he said. "It's worth the price of admission to hear a white
boy speaking Chinese in Davies Symphony Hall."
For their $45, guests got a musical and visual banquet, beginning
with youthful lion dancers from Leung's White Crane Kung Fu Association,
and including a performance of "The Butterfly Lovers" concerto featuring
the dazzling, Grammy-nominated Jiebing Chen on erhu (the two-stringed
Chinese violin).
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The
Chinese
Siamese Cat
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Another highlight, of course, was Amy Tan, who, on the eve of a new
book, "The Bonesetter's Daughter," celebrated by reading portions
of her classic debut, "The Joy Luck Club," and her children's book,
"The Chinese Siamese Cat," the latter enlivened even more by projections
of the book's illustrations by the wonderful Gretchen Schields.
Amy, once given to stage fright, is commanding on stage,
dressed in gold and black Chinese hat and tunic, and poised enough
to time her reading with the orchestra's score - and to maintain
eye contact with the audience. Behind her, Chen, along with Zhiming
Han on what Daugherty called flutes (dizi) and a butterfly harp
(yangquin), and Cynthia Hsinmei Hsiang, on the Chinese zither (zheng),
melded perfectly with the orchestra. For the children's book, they
played a composition by Nathan Wang (whose work includes the opera
Gold Mountain, based on Lisa See's book), and, for "Joy Luck Club,"
they performed excerpts from the film version's score by the Oscar
winner Rachel Portman.
It was beautiful. The erhu's soaring expressiveness reminded
me of the opera singers I used to hear on Chinese radio broadcasts
and on occasional trips from Oakland into San Francisco's Chinatown.
It was a nice bit of nostalgia to have on the eve of Chinese New
Year.
Amy was also feeling nostalgic. She lost her mother, Daisy
Tan, last year, and dedicated her two concerts to her. "It was always
my mother's wish that I play with a world class orchestra," she
told the audience. "I can hear her now, saying, 'See, if you'd only
practiced harder, you would be Jiebing Chen, playing instead of
just reading a book.'"
Backstage, Amy welcomed dozens of admirers, then invited
Dianne and me to join her at a party a friend was staging a couple
of nights later. Because the hosts had recently moved into their
house on Graceland Avenue, they decided to have a (belated) Elvis
birthday party. "Are you sure you can invite us along?" we asked
Amy. "Sure," she said. "Sandy's seen you doing your Elvis, and she
even told me she wished she could invite you - if only she knew
you." So we showed up and joined in on the karaoke. Along with all
the Elvis songs, there was Amy, doing "Leader of the Pack." Her
husband Lou, in a tough black leather jacket and with his hair greased
up, acted out the song, falling to the ground after the song's climactic
motorcycle crackup. Amy herself was decked out in a Fifties version
of dominatrix gear. And to think, just two nights ago, she was dressed
for the symphony.
There's nothing like showbiz...
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RANDOM NOTES:
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Ben
Fong-Torres
and Julie Haener
photo credit: Kenny Wardell
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Congrats to Cameron
Crowe, whose film, "Almost Famous," won two Golden Globes. Now, Terry
Chen, who played me in the movie, can add the Globe affiliation to
his resume. Crazy?�And, of course, kudos to Ang Lee, who also got
two awards for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." "I spent a whole
year in China," he said, looking for his roots "and dealing with my
childhood fantasy and mid-life crisis." It was obviously a year well
spent?�For those of you in Northern California: I'll be co-hosting
the Chinese New Year Parade on February 3 at 6 p.m. with Julie Haener
on KTVU (Fox 2), repeating the next morning at 11 a.m. Unless, of
course, we get rolled over by a blackout??
Visit Ben's
Official Site: www.BenFongTorres.com
Click to Ben
Fong-Torres Articles Index
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