The only facility of its kind on Taiwan, the TMCP was inspired by the Tanglewood Music Center, the famous annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts. Tanglewood is also the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
“Five years ago, former NTSO Director Su Chung brought up the idea of building Taiwan’s own Tanglewood, hoping to promote an appreciation of classical music as well as to cultivate more local young talents,” said incumbent NTSO Director Liu Suan-yung at the opening ceremony.
Recently celebrating the 64th anniversary of its founding in 1945, the NTSO is the oldest symphony orchestra in Taiwan. It is also one of the few symphony orchestras on the island with its own concert hall. The number of visitors to the NTSO reached 100,000 in both 2008 and 2009. Liu hopes that with the opening of the music park the combined annual number of people visiting the NTSO and the park will exceed 200,000.
“I have been in love with music since I was a child. And I used to play trumpet and trombone, but I never thought of becoming a professional musician,” said Su, now the director of National Taichung Library, in a recent interview. Su took over the position as the director of the NTSO in 2003 and immediately realized its remarkable facilities made it suitable for conversion into a music cultural park.
“Not only does NTSO have the best concert hall in Taiwan, but it also encompasses buildings that can be used for music camps, studios for the musicians as well as recording studios,” Su explained. He came up with the idea of building Taiwan’s version of Tanglewood to mark the orchestra’s 60th anniversary.
“It would be historically significant and it would help local development to integrate the music park with other neighboring tourist attractions such as Wufeng Lin Family Garden, the 921 Earthquake Education Park, the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council and Wufeng’s Mushroom Museum, one of only two such museums in the world.”
With a combined population of about 4.5 million residing in Taichung City, Taichung County, Changhua County, Nantou County and Yunlin County, the central region of Taiwan has been long overlooked when it comes to cultural resources, Su observed.
“Under the strong support of the Council for Cultural Affairs, I’m glad to see the completion of the first stage of the TMCP. It can help build Taiwan’s reputation in music and arts performances and connect Taiwan with the international community,” Su said, voicing his optimism for the future and his expectation that the park will improve the quality of the tourism industry in the region.
NTSO Deputy Director Tseng Nan-ting pointed out that “with the debut of this music park, we hope to integrate with other tourist attractions within this area to make one-day tour packages available for locals as well as out-of-towners, offering them unique cultural experiences found only in this area.”
Funded by the CCA, the park did not need to purchase land to construct new buildings for its operation, but instead sought to add additional value to the NTSO’s existing structures by renovating and converting some of its building into facilities designed to suit its needs.
Presently NTSO employees are helping to run the park, said Josephine Lo, staff member of NTSO’s Planning and Marketing Department. The goal is to ultimately turn it over to the private sector for future operations, in the hope of copying the successful model originated by the Center for Traditional Art in Yilan County, she added.
Conveniently located about 30 minutes away from the high-speed railway’s Taichung Station, the TMCP will eventually consist of four major parts: an exhibition of musical instruments, a multimedia room, musical training facilities and studios for artists in residence.
As of Dec. 17, the exhibition of musical instruments as well as the multimedia room are completed and open to the public. The remaining areas are under construction and are scheduled to be fully operational by the second half of 2010.
The exhibition of musical instruments located on the first floor of the TMCP is interactive. Visitors can enter any one of 10 booths equipped with earphones and computer screens. By pressing a button, they can enjoy a demonstration of a particular instrument, such as a flute, an oboe or a clarinet.
Visitors can also try their hand at conducting in front of a big-screen display depicting an orchestra in action. At the end of the performance, the erstwhile conductor will be given a score grading his efforts, making it a truly enjoyable and educational musical lesson that can not be found anywhere else in Taiwan.
The multimedia room is located on the second floor. It also functions as a library for musicians and others interested in music history. One of its advanced features is the way in which information about 15 world-renowned musicians can be accessed. This is done by the combination of hand movement and a light-sensor to flip pages of an electronic book. Additional information about music will be added later on.
Entrance to the exhibition of musical instruments and the multimedia center is free of charge, but visitors must make reservations in advance given the shortage of staff at the park. “Tourists interested in visiting our park are encouraged to contact us beforehand so that a guided group tour can be arranged and free electronic audio guides can be provided,” Lo stressed.
The studios for artists-in-residence are only partially available, but the facilities that are open to artists have been praised as first-rate by such visitors as composer Robert Beaser of the Julliard School in New York, Lo recounted with pride.
Ko Chi-liang, CTA director-general who was also director of NTSO from 2005 to 2008, echoed Director Liu’s vision of having more than 200,000 visitors annually, now that the park’s facilities are being opened to the public. Ko, speaking from CTA’s successful experience as a government-owned facility transferred into a privately run tourist attraction, is confident that this goal would be realized given NTSO’s abundant musical resources.
While the government is striving to make Taiwan known throughout the world for its high-tech industry, the TMCP demonstrates that it is also possible for the island to cultivate its citizens’ appreciation of music and arts and demonstrate to the world its musical accomplishments.
Write to Lishan Chang at lishan@mail.gio.gov.tw