Intermezzo-Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni

May you live in interesting times was not a Chinese Blessing; it was more a warning that order is followed by disorder; that harmony is often followed by anxiety and sometimes despair. Yet, if we give up hope, we give up life. So, as we look out over the world and see so much enmity and strife, let us also shift our gaze back to beauty and joy. We do this best when we take a few minutes to watch a Chinese student orchestra play the Intermezzo from an Italian one-act opera (Cavallieria Rusticana), composed by Pietro Mascagni in 1890. Time and place melt away before the sunlight of the universal language of glorious music.