Alice Ping Yee Ho: The Lesson of Da Ji

The JUNO Award nominated composer Alice Ping Yee Ho has created a work that improbably blends Chinese, Baroque, and Western art formats in this Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning opera that conjoins legend and dance into a world of music and drama. The Lesson of Da Ji brings together the European masque tradition and classical Peking opera in a vibrant and beautiful story written by librettist Marjorie Chan. The unique instrumentation of the accompanying ensemble has been chosen to showcase the expressive quality of Chinese instruments (pipa, zhongruan, guzheng, and erhu), the lush Western strings as well as the dramatic use of percussion instruments. This project was commissioned by Toronto Masque Theatre in 2012, with the help o the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. This recording was made possible through the assistance of the Toronto Arts Council.