Chinese orchestra
| Music of China | |
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| Music festivals | Midi Modern Music Festival |
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| Nationalistic and patriotic songs | |
| National anthem | |
| Regional music | |
| Example of a Chinese Orchestra Piece | |
 Erhu Concerto Butterfly Lovers (梁祝) featuring erhuist Sun Huang, 2013. |
The term Chinese orchestra is most commonly used to refer to the modern Chinese orchestra that is found in China and various overseas Chinese communities. This modern Chinese orchestra first developed out of Jiangnan sizhu ensemble in the 1920s into a form that is based on the structure and principles of a Western symphony orchestra but using Chinese instruments. The orchestra is divided into four sections - wind, plucked strings, bow strings, and percussion, and usually performs modernized traditional music called guoyue. The orchestra may be referred to as Minzu Yuetuan or Minzu Yuedui in mainland China, Zhongyuetuan in Hong Kong, Huayuetuan in South East Asia, or Guoyuetuan in Taiwan, all meaning Chinese orchestra.
The term may also be used to describe ancient Chinese orchestras that existed since the Shang Dynasty and was used at royal court and later during Confucian ceremonies.
Archaeological findings suggest that ancient China has a highly developed and sophisticated music culture. Music was an important element in traditional ritualistic ceremonies during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1550-1111 BC), and it reached one of its peaks during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1111-222 BC). The ancient form of the orchestra was used to play a form of ceremonial music known as yayue.
It featured a great abundance of percussion instruments. There were also several wind instruments, but only a few zither-type string instruments were used. All the bowed string instruments and most of the plucked string instruments first came to China from Central Asia after the Han dynasty (202 BC-AD 219).
The Six Dynasties era following the collapse of Han Dynasty saw the first wave of musical influence from Central Asia, and Central Asian music became very popular during the Sui-Tang dynasty period. The Tang period was a very important epoch in the evolution of Chinese music, and court banquet music called yanyue (燕樂) was the dominant form of music during this era. The number of different orchestras playing various forms of music in the Tang court may reach ten, including yanyue, qingyue, and music of other places such as Kucha, Kashgar, Samarkand, Korea and India. The Tang imperial court also had a large outdoor band of nearly 1,200 performers. Chinese music then continued to evolve during the Song dynasty (AD 960-1279) with major development in yayue, and a yayue orchestra in this period may have over 200 instrumentalists.
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Wikipedia