After my adventures earlier that day, I was able to relax and head towards my evening event, a performance by the grandly named “Zhuhai National Orchestra” (珠海民族管弦樂團) at the Shanghai Poly theatre, since the venue was more than two kilometres from the nearest metro station I had to order a Didi taxi(China’s version of Uber) for the first time ever.
On reaching the nearest metro station I ordered the taxi on my Wechat app and it arrived very soon. Getting to it was a bit of an adventure because firstly I wasn’t able to see it and I wasn’t able to call the driver. It turned out it was on the opposite side of the dual carriageway to me so I finally got to it via a handy footbridge. We then arrived at the theatre within a few minutes.
The Shanghai Poly theatre is a futuristic, cube shaped building, adorned with a soft white light, obviously recently built. Since I arrived early it was empty except for a few staff and I decided to have my dinner first at the shopping centre next door. After my nourishment, I went back to the theatre, I noticed there were two auditoria, and my concert was in the larger one. Despite having a QR code ticket on my app, I had to print off a paper ticket at one of the ticket machines. The auditorium was about sixty percent full at the start of the show.
The Zhuhai National Orchestra was more like a chamber orchestra or ensemble featuring a collection of classical (cello and piano), traditional Chinese(erhu and pippa) and modern pop (bass guitar and drums) instruments. Led by pianist 曲大卫, we were treated to a variety of jazz, western classical, chinese classical and chinese folk pieces. In between each piece 曲大卫 gave a little talk on piece in his Cantonese accented mandarin Chinese. It was a quite enjoyable two hours and the ticket was only 120RMB. Afterwards another Didi taxi took me back to the hotel, looks like I’m getting used to mainland living.
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