Music Director Has Great Appreciation for the NTDTV International Chinese Vocal Competition

By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Canada

(Clearwisdom.net) Matthew Jaskiewicz graduated from the Conducting Department of Poland's Warsaw Academy of Music. He has been conducting choirs and orchestras in Canada for over 25 years. Mr. Jaskiewicz told an NTDTV reporter that he believes it is extremely important for NTDTV to hold the first of its kind International Chinese Vocal Competition. He also emphasized that a pure and authentic music competition should not have any communist ideological influence.

Matthew Jaskiewicz is the director of the well-known Oakham House Choir of Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. He pointed out that true traditional classical music has suffered in recent times and that classical music and people who perform classical music, including professional musicians, are facing difficult times. He greatly appreciated NTDTV's efforts to organize the International Chinese Vocal Competition to introduce this classical music to the younger generations. He also highly recommended that his colleagues and friends enter the NTDTV Chinese Vocal Music Competition.

"This is why I find your competition extremely important, because you not only introduce classical music to children, you also introduce your Chinese music to our Western musicians." He believes that, unfortunately, Western musicians know very little about Chinese music. "So I find this competition very useful."

Matthew Jaskiewicz analyzed how the Communist dictatorship has crushed true music and the arts in general: "I know very well that ideology can suppress the arts." He also pointed out that the biggest masterpieces of music are basically sacred music, but he and his group were absolutely forbidden to perform in churches in Communist Poland. "The number of those religious pieces of works was strictly limited...that was like working with your hands tied."

Matthew Jaskiewicz also mentioned that, because of the isolation of Communist Poland, they did not have contact with musicians in western Europe. "So there were many, many things making music composition in Poland in those days very difficult. I strongly believe that there is no Communist ideology influence in your competition. It is pure music with no politics."

Mr. Jaskiewicz believes that music is the best way to communicate among communities. He has been actively involved in the local Polish, Jewish, and Chinese music communities. He is also the conductor of the Angel Choir of Toronto. In 2006, he was awarded the Order of Poland by the Polish president for his great promotion of Polish culture abroad.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/10/13/164417.html

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