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A photo of Chu-shui CHEN and Fu-mei LIU after a concert. (© Fu-mei LIU)
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A Gathering of Artists—the Winter Month Assembly
\n\nAfter graduating from the academy, LIU decided to leave her life in Taipei behind and start over in Kaohsiung with CHEN. The couple married in 1967. “Chu-shui dedicated his piano piece, Autumn, to me as a wedding present. Autumn was his favorite season of the year,” said LIU, her eyes smiling.
\n\nThey became acquainted with local artists in Kaohsiung, including Tyzen HSIAO[5], who later became CHEN's best friend. “In those days, after our evening classes ended at nine, we would tuck our children into bed and go out with a couple of friends to enjoy chatting over a late meal,” said LIU.
\n\nThis group of artists founded the "Winter Month Assembly", an interdisciplinary arts group that combined music with fine arts, poetry, and calligraphy; the name was chosen due to their exhibition being held in December of each year. Members of the Assembly included painters Chao-chin LI and Che CHUANG , poets Hsiu-yueh CHEN and Lang-ping PAI (pen name; born TSAI Liang-Pa and later changed to Meng-che TSAI ), and musicians Tyzen HSIAO, CHEN Chu-Shui, and LIN Jung-Te (joined in the second year), with LIU Fu-Mei responsible for event planning and the administrative aspects of the Assembly's operations.
\n\nThe "Winter Month Assembly" held two joint exhibitions at the Hotel Kingdom in Kaohsiung, once in 1974 and again in 1975. These exhibitions showcased pieces of painting and calligraphy while poets read their work accompanied by performances by musicians. It was quite a radical idea at the time to host an exhibition that allowed visitors to enjoy different artforms simultaneously. “Although the cost of renting the venue was so high that the money from the ticket sales mostly went to cover it, the artists were content simply to take part in the event,” LIU said with a laugh.
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Those Whom the Gods Love Die Young
\n\n“In 1986, during a graduation trip to Hualien and Taitung with his students from Private Tainan Junior College of Home Economics[6], Chu-shui told me over the phone that he felt sick and was not eating or sleeping well. When he returned to Kaohsiung, we found a lump on his shoulder. We went to the hospital for an examination, and the doctor told me that Chu-shui had terminal lymphoma and only had six months left to live,” said LIU. As she finished speaking, there was a moment of silence in which we both sat with a sorrowful expression on our faces.
\n\nWhen he was diagnosed, Chu-shui CHEN was only 44 years old. He was a father to two children, a good husband, a well-respected teacher to his students, and a musician at the peak of his career. The news of his cancer diagnosis was a terrible shock to his friends and family. CHEN did not accept his fate and began chemotherapy under his oncologist, but nonetheless succumbed to the illness six months later. “Before he passed away, Chu-shui said to me, ‘There are still so many things I haven't done’,” said LIU.
\n\nA few months before his passing, the couple went on a trip to Kenting accompanied by his friend Hsiu-yueh CHEN. In these last months of his life, Chu-shui CHEN wished to talk to his poet friend about his deepest emotions, and asked him to put these feelings into lyrics. This was how CHEN's last piece—the Trials and Tribulations Suite—came to be written. The suite consists of five movements, but CHEN passed away before he could complete the last two. The second movement, My Beoved, was his last musical piece dedicated to his beloved wife.
\n\nThe couple had a son and a daughter who grew up to pursue careers in the academic and professional fields of art and design. (© Fu-mei LIU)
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Leaving behind a Legacy of Love
\n\n“In the months after Chu-shui's passing, I felt as if my soul had left with him. I lay in bed, passing in and out of sleep, unwilling to face reality. But I had to pull myself together for my children and students,” said LIU. “It was about twenty years after Chu-shui's passing when I started going through his old manuscripts and books. I thought to myself that it would be better for these manuscripts and books to be used and preserved than to sit collecting dust in my home, so I donated them to our alma mater, National Taiwan University of Arts,” LIU said with a smile.
\n\nTen years later, and thirty years after CHEN's passing, LIU donated his precious autograph manuscripts to the Taiwan Music Institute. Today, these documents are preserved in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment within the institute to preserve them and pass them on to future generations.
\n\nOn my way back from the interview, I mulled over our heartwarming conversation. The soft yet unwavering look in LIU's eyes whenever she thought of CHEN was one filled with eternal love. As CHEN said in My Beloved, “Life is meaningless if love is only of the past instead of the future… Let our unbroken love live on.”
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[1]Short for the National Taiwan Academy of Arts, now National Taiwan University of Arts
\n\n[2]Taiwanese musician, 1941-2014
\n\n[3]Taiwanese musician and educator, 1929-2001
\n\n[4]Ethnomusicologist and educator, 1926-1977
\n\n[5]Taiwanese musician, 1938-2015
\n\n[6]Now the Tainan University of Technology. Tyzen HSIAO, Chu-shui CHEN, and Fu-mei LIU all taught there
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