I was honoured to be invited to “Silk Roads II – Mongolia”, a concert event celebrating Toronto’s Asian community and their contributions to our history, culture and the arts. It also marked the launch for the new Virtual Museum of Asian Canadian Cultural Heritage website [ http://bit.ly/1KszEQ7 ].
Canada’s leading flute virtuoso Ron Korb performed along with dancers and musicians, and the event was kicked off by a photographic travelogue of their recent trip to Mongolia, courtesy of Dr. Neville Poy and his charming wife, the Hon. Dr. Vivienne Poy (pictured below) following their son, Justin Poy, giving the opening address to the packed house at the Innis Town Hall Theatre, Toronto.
Our charming MC for the evening, Janet Lin (pictured below) then intro’d all the performers, starting with an awesome performance by Xuanyi Liu playing the rare Chinese harp, the Konghou (centre) who was accompanied for one song by beautiful dancers Alice and Natasha (bottom picture)
Ron then took the stage to present several tunes from his latest CD, Asia Beauty, accompanied by JiaLiang Zhu on piano.
Ron was followed by a contemporary dance piece featuring Mairead Filgate and Luke Garwood (below)
…then Greek musician Yiannis Kapoulas played a series of tunes using instruments influenced by those originally brought to the Middle East via the silk road (below)
The performances were capped of with a beautiful traditional Mongolian dance presentation by the Chi-Ping Dance Group and dancers from the Chinese Collective Arts Association (below)
There was a grand curtain call for all the performers and event organizers, volunteers and VIPs with Justin and his parents taking up drums and joining Ron to play the finale “jam” (below) as everyone took their curtain call.
The entire celebration of Asian Heritage was both entertaining and educational and my thanks to Gabriella Luchetta for photographing all the colour and excitement you see here.
Ron and Dr. Poy thank you for dropping by!