TAIPEI — Taiwan’s stories, traditions and cultural identity are taking center stage as the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (TCO) launches an expansive 2026/27 season featuring 56 performances that blend contemporary Chinese music, Taiwanese opera and international collaborations.
Running through June 2027, the new season places a particular spotlight on Taiwanese composer Su Wen-cheng, whose decades-long contribution to Chinese orchestral music will be explored through performances spanning different periods of his career.
Rather than treating traditional music as something locked in the past, the orchestra is using the new season to connect Taiwan’s musical heritage with contemporary composition, theater and musicians from across Asia.
Su Wen-cheng takes the spotlight
The season’s central theme, “Hearing Su Wen-cheng,” examines the composer’s distinctive musical language and his long relationship with Taiwan’s cultural and social landscape.
The opening concert was held on September 15 at the National Concert Hall, with Su himself conducting works from his repertoire. The program also included the world premiere of the commissioned work “Old Tales of the North City.”
Taiwan’s National Education Radio reported that the orchestra plans to perform works from different stages of Su’s career throughout the season while also publishing and organizing materials related to his music and legacy.
That makes the season more than a series of concerts: it is also an effort to introduce a major Taiwanese composer to a broader audience while documenting his contribution to the development of Taiwan’s Chinese orchestral music.
Taiwanese opera gets a modern stage
One of the season’s most distinctive productions will arrive in December with “The Sisters,” a new Taiwanese opera presented by TCO.
Scheduled for December 18-20 at the Taipei Performing Arts Center’s Grand Theater, the production follows characters connected to a traveling Taiwanese opera troupe during a period of social change.
The production combines orchestral music, theater and traditional Taiwanese cultural references while exploring the lives and ambitions of performers and ordinary people.
The Taipei Performing Arts Center lists the production as a 150-minute Mandarin-language performance and identifies composer Ming-Hsiu Yen and playwright/director Yuan-Keng Yu among its principal creative figures.
The orchestra looks beyond Taiwan
The new season also expands TCO’s international and cross-cultural programming.
An October concert will open the Taiwan International Cello Festival, bringing together four cellists from different countries under conductor Chang Yin-fang. The program is designed to place the cello alongside Chinese orchestral instruments and explore different musical traditions.
In January, musicians from Singapore and Malaysia will join the orchestra for a program connecting Chinese orchestral music with Southeast Asian musical traditions.
Other performances will spotlight younger Chinese instrumentalists on instruments including the erhu, flute and yangqin, while another concert will revisit earlier Chinese orchestral works through acclaimed erhu and pipa performers.
From traditional instruments to Taiwan’s wider cultural identity
The season reflects a broader effort to present Taiwan’s musical traditions as diverse rather than confined to a single style.
The orchestra’s programming includes references to nanguan and beiguan, musical traditions historically associated with temple communities, alongside Indigenous Taiwanese instruments such as the jaw harp and wooden drums.
That approach gives the season a wider cultural scope: contemporary Chinese orchestral composition sits alongside Taiwanese opera, traditional performance practices and collaborations with musicians from neighboring countries.
TCO’s own international profile also continues to expand. The orchestra, founded in 1979, says it has performed in more than 20 countries and became the first Taiwanese professional orchestra to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2018. In June 2026, it performed at major European venues including the Berliner Philharmonie, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus and Vienna’s Musikverein.
A season built around stories
With 56 performances scheduled across nine months, the 2026/27 season is ultimately built around a simple idea: using music to tell stories about Taiwan while creating connections beyond the island.
From Su Wen-cheng’s contemporary compositions to the December premiere of “The Sisters,” and from Chinese orchestral traditions to collaborations with Southeast Asian musicians, TCO is positioning its new season as both a celebration of heritage and an exploration of where that heritage can go next.
For audiences, the result is a season where Taiwanese stories are not simply preserved — they are being reinterpreted, performed and carried onto new stages.
WWC ONE MEDIA G,A
