Beatles music with Chinese characteristics will be the centerpiece of a concert in Liverpool Sunday by Britain's only Chinese youth orchestra.
The Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra, the oldest and largest Chinese youth ensemble in Europe, is presenting a "Summer of love" festival, performing a range of music popular around the world in 1967, the year the Beatles' classic album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band was released.
With celebrations in Liverpool to mark the 50th anniversary of the album, the award winning orchestra will perform three Beatles songs from the year, "Hey Jude," "Yellow Submarine" and "She's Leaving Home".
The orchestra will also play two classics from China to represent the year.
From the same year, the orchestra has chosen a song from Fengyang Flower Drum, an album released by late Teresa Teng, or Deng Lijin, a Taiwanese pop singer who was just 14 at the time.
Representing a style of music, popular in China's Hong Kong region, the orchestra is to play two songs that represent Jingshen Music, a fusion of a very unique style of classical Cantonese music combined with elements of jazz, swing and ballroom.
Orchestra leader Zi Lan Liao said: "We wanted to play our part in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Sgt Pepper album. All of our members are too young to have experienced the Beatles as a live band, but you cannot come from Liverpool and not be influenced by the Beatles."
"We thought we would perform a concert that represents music from Britain as well as China that was being performed in 1967, the year Sgt Pepper was released.
"The concert will be a reflection of real history for both young and old. Every piece we play will be from around the same era, a real fusion of music from China and the West."
The orchestra, established in 1982 by Kui Hsuing Li and now run by his daughter, Zi Lan Liao, has performed for Queen Elizabeth and has worked with leading world orchestras and musicians.
