The University of Arizona is gazing into the Year of the Dog with a Chinese New Year celebration, put on by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra (SASO) with the Tucson Sino Choir on Thursday, Jan. 25. 

This free cultural exhibition, sponsored by the Confucius Institute of the UA (CIUA), takes place at 7:30 p.m. in Crowder Hall. 

According to the CIUA website, the institute strives to “become one of the 50 Model Confucius Institutes around the world.” 

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They will accomplish this goal by “featuring innovative integration of traditional Chinese medicine, martial arts, culture, performance art, ancient history, humanity, education and language.”

This is the first year that four concerts will be presented, including vocalists Hua Xu and Xuanshu Jiang, plus instrumental soloists Jing Xia on the guzheng and Fangyuan Liu on erhu.

Both the 21-stringed guzheng, also known as the Chinese zither, and the erhu, a Chinese two-stringed fiddle, originally had strings made of silk. 

Both instrumental soloists are graduates of the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing and currently teach at the UA. 

Program Director for the Confucius Institute, Larry (Xiaoming) Lang, said the significance of the event to Tucson lies in the fact that the city truly is a center for culture.

Lang, the artistic director of the Arizona Chinese New Year Festival and music director of the Tucson Sino Choir,  has performed with many different orchestras, including SASO. 

“Tucson is an international, cultural melting pot; it comes with all kinds of culture and, especially, music,” Lang said. 

This New Year celebration allows the community of Tucson the opportunity to be involved in sharing, and experiencing, a small part of Chinese culture.

The event encourages diverse exposure outside of people’s own culture, while still being strongly intertwined in the atmosphere of Tucson. 

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This cultural immersement is made possible specifically through musical pieces and traditional Chinese instruments. 

Lang has been bringing this kind of rich, Chinese music to Tucson for almost 10 years, with all the concerts being well-received by the community. 

“Great Wall Capricio” will be performed by erhu soloist Liu and the orchestra. 

Guzheng soloist Xia and the orchestra will perform “The Tale of Rainbow Clouds.”

This free event will be held Thursday, Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Crowder Hall.  

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