Beginning
Changhua County occupies an important position in Taiwan's history and culture. The traditional music opera, Nan Guan and Bei Guan, flourished for a time due to the booming economy development in its early days. “How Nan Guan and Bei Guan were saved and promoted” plays a very important role in the development of Taiwan's music.
Today, the Nan Guan and Bei Guan Center, a subordinate of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, has become the most unique museum in Changhua, which allows Nan Guan and Bei Guan, the musical operas once quite famous in Changhua and even all of Taiwan, not only to be explored and positioned again, but also to be played and to flourish as valuable cultural assets.
History
With magnificent beauty and the Chinese ancient garden style, this center is our most unique new building project in decades. The planning and preparation was started in 1989 after receiving approval by the Council for Cultural Affairs, Executive Yuan. Due to its enormous scale, a financial deficiencies situation occurred in the very beginning. Fortunately, through Magistrate Juan, Kang-Meng’s great endeavors, the financial problem was gradually solved and construction was started as planned. All details of this center are highly specialized, from each piece of brick to the entire design and construction.The Nan Guan and Bei Guan Center officially opened for operation on July 25, 1999. With the functions of demonstration, study and promotion, the musical operas of Nan Guan and Bei Guan are not only be able to be played and promoted, but can also be taken up for academic research and culture inheritance.
Inheritance function
With the establishment of the Nan Guan and Bei Guan Center, the Cultural Affairs Bureau has continued to promote related software construction in recent years, such as the large-scale events of the Changhua Opera Festival and Nan Guan and Bei Guan Assembly, the important fundamental publication that has won great academic praise for topics like “Changhua County music and martial art halls”, "Changhua County music development history", “Strum art world of Lin Ah-Chun and Lai Mu-Song”, “Oral history drama monograph by the seniors in Changhua county" and "Nan Guan and Bei Guan music appreciation for beginners".
In addition to the functions of demonstration, study, promotion and making friendships, this center also encourages academic research, cultural inheritance and counseling. Since 1987, we have actively promoted workshops about nan guan, bei guan and the seven dolls play to train a large number of seed talents for folk culture inheritance; we also established the "Nan Guan Experimental Orchestra" in 1996 and the "Bei Guan Experimental Orchestra" in 2000 for the constructive inheritance of traditional Chinese opera art and culture.