The climax of IYA 2009 -- 100 Hours of Astronomy -- finally arrives, unfortunately the weather is not favourable for star gazing now, as an old Chinese poem goes, "Qingming time lots of drizzle" (Qingming: a traditional day occured on Apr. 4 or 5 each year, it's the time for Chinese to visit the tombs of their ancestors and passed relatives). I don't know the reason to schedule the 100 Hours of Astronomy around the Qingming days -- maybe the weather condition is favourable for star gazing in North America or mainland Europe, but not China. Last week, a serve thunderstorm hitted Guangzhou and meteorological observations at the observatory of our campus showed it is the worst thunderstorm we had since at least 2006, thus, very few students would like to join the Earth Hour activity by turn off their lights. For me, I had wish to show my support to the EH by holding a "dark sky" concert at the center park of our campus, but it had to be cancelled due to heavy rainfall.

So the situation may well possible to be similar this time, a cold front is expected to arrive around Apr. 4 and bring another server weather to us -- although unlikely to be as bad as the Mar. 28's -- but enough to rule out possibilities for an excellent 100-hour activity. Anyway, I'll be the North Entrance Plaza of the old campus of our university for the Guangzhou 100 Hours of Astronomy, although I'm not very opmistic for its outcome.

On the other hand, I will celebrate the 100-hour privately by a unique (but "ordinary" for me) way: holding concerts. This time, a series of concerts will be held thorough-out the 100-hour, and everyday there will be a concert with a specific theme, with some of my works written over the past ten years to be played. As usual, I will "conduct" the Philharmonic Orchestra '92 (well, actually, the orchestra is a combination of me, my CDs and MIDIs on hand...) for the concerts.

The opening concert on Apr. 2 is under the theme title of "The universe we observe and the planet we live".

Philharmonic Orchestra '92 | Ye Quanzhi

2009 Apr. 2, 19:30 CST at Kissland Music Ground

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
1. Festive Overture, op. 96

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
2. Symphony No. 104 in D Major, "London", Hob.I:104

Ye Quanzhi
3. Prelude of Our Solar System, Q. 151
4. Little Star Variation, Q. 173

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
5. Verklärte Nacht, op. 4; Transfigured night

Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
6. Sphären-Klänge, op. 235; Music of the Spheres

Ye Quanzhi
7. 24-hour, Q. 45
8. Coriolis, Q. 119