The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra was founded in October 2000 by the Music Director, Chih-Sheng Chen, and a group of young musicians who are both enthusiasts of Chinese art, as well as professionally accomplished players. The instrumentation of the orchestra consists essentially of two groups of instruments – Si-Zhu: ‘絲si’, or ‘silk’ string instruments, and ‘竹zhu’, or ‘bamboo’ wind instruments. The musicians of the orchestra are dedicated to contributing to the spread of Chinese music throughout the world.

In 2002, the orchestra organized a series of concert tours in which 70 musicians took part, including its debut concert ‘Peony Pavilion – Xun-Fa Yu’s Dizi Art’. This debut was not only widely celebrated, but also praised as a ‘miracle’ of this youth orchestra. This performance won the attention of experts on Chinese music and gave rise to the symposium ‘The Direction of Development of the State Orchestra– Inspiration from an Amateur Orchestra’.

In 2004 the Orchestra went on two concert tours: ‘A Series of Concerts Passing on the Torch between Taiwan and China’, and ‘A Series of Concerts for Young Musicians’. These included numerous collaborations with Chinese instrument soloists: among others Xun-Fa Yu (dizi), Hsi-Rong Wang (pipa), Ke-Mei Jiang (banhu), Jiang-Bin Liu (suona), Tze-You Lin (suona), Ying Wang (erhu), Hui Lee (percussion), Wei-Wei Lan (pipa), Ming-Yu Wang (erhu), etc. The Orchestra was also selected for the ‘Taipei Traditional Festival’ organized by the TaipeiMunicipality, performing a Si-Zhu chamber concert in the Taipei’s municipal Zhoung-Shan Hall.

In 2005 the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra was selected for support and development by the Taiwan Council for Cultural Affairs. It has also received admiration and financial support from the Taiwan Ministry of Education, the Taiwan Council for Cultural Affairs, the NationalCenter for Traditional Arts, the Taipei City Government Department of Culture Affairs, and the National Culture and Arts Foundation.

In several years of training and practice, theLittle Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra has matured into an ensemble of both technical and artistic proficiency, and represents a new generation in the history of the Chinese orchestra. With every performance it hopes to demonstrate the energy and passion of the new generation of Taiwanese musicians in order to breathe new life into the deeply-rooted art form of Chinese music.

Website: http://www.littlegiant.idv.tw