A concert hall bearing the name of a Taiwan-born philanthropist officially opened to the public last month in the U.S. city of Rockport, Mass., 25 miles northeast of Boston.
Shalin Liu Performance Center opened simultaneously with the 28th Rockport Chamber Music Festival June 10. It is named after the U.S.-based philanthropist, who donated US$3 million to the performance center project three years ago, helping bring construction to completion.
“It was my dream to build a concert hall for burgeoning young talent,” Liu said. A philosophy student at National Taiwan University, she moved to the U.S. in 1973 to pursue further studies, and has lived there ever since. She now chairs a foundation for educational, humanitarian and cultural causes.
“Originally I hoped for a hall in Taiwan, but after talking with Rockport festival board members, I decided to make the donation here, as we seemed to embrace the same ideals,” Liu said in a recent interview.
Shalin Liu Performance Center was created as a permanent home for the chamber music festival. Its opening concert featured a trio piece for piano, violin and cello dedicated to Liu, subtitled “Granite Coast,” commissioned by the festival board from contemporary American composer Scott Wheeler.
The 300-seat, shoebox-shaped concert hall, featuring a huge wall of windows at the back of the stage looking into Rockport Harbor, was designed by architects Alan Joslin and Deborah Epstein and acoustician Lawrence Kirkegaard. The structure comprises three stories in stylistic imitation of the Victorian period.
“Music has been my source of strength and pleasure in life, and it pained me to see talented young musicians having to undergo so many ordeals before being recognized one day, while the dedication they put into training was probably no less than that of Yoyo Ma,” Liu said.
“I thank musicians for making the world more beautiful,” she told the opening concert audience.
A caveat for the donation deal stipulates that US$500,000 of the donation must be devoted to educational programs for students and children from low-income families. (PCT-THN)