Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu province in eastern China. With a population of more than eight million, it is one of China’s most important cities with a history going back thousands of years.

But it is also a city of modern tragedy when, in 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the city, causing considerable damage and massacring more than 300,000 of its citizens.

Families of Port Kembla in NSW came out in support of the Chinese, even though, at the time, pig iron was being exported from the steel works to Japan.

Wollongong composer and musician, Judith Stubbs, wrote “The Nanjing Suite” in commemoration of the so-called Rape of Nanking and in celebration of its reconstruction as Nanjing. It was used as the soundtrack for the documentary, “The Dalfram Dispute 1938: Pig Iron Bob”, by Why Documentaries, which premiered in Wollongong on March 21.

Stubbs has recorded the work and this concert performance, given in the second half of the program, was its first in complete form, with the addition of the finale, “The Phoenix”, written especially for guest musicians — Wang Tainzhu, Erhu player and concert master of the Nanjing National Chinese Orchestra, and Dai Yin, multi-instrumentalist and conductor of the orchestra.

Also featured, were Zhang Liliang, who sang in the choir, Eklektika, cellist Rita Woodhouse and Irish folkie Johnny Spillane.

As incidental music for a film, “The Nanjing Suite” probably works quite well, but it fails as a concert piece. It has no structure, dynamics or emotion, is repetitive and in the end, tedious. Hearing it as a concert piece was much like listening to the soundtrack to a new-age art film and, in the absence of the images, the music was meaningless.

The new finale, “The Phoenix”, could have lifted the whole work but was more of the same.

The orchestration, too, could have been a real fusion of west and east, but seemed unstructured, especially considering one of the special guests, multi-instrument percussionist, Dai Yin, was relegated to a Chinese drum and sat through most of the piece unheard.

There were even times when Elklektika seemingly expected to sing (the conductor came out to the front), but ended up not doing so. When they did sing it was just “vocalising”, albeit done nicely.

The staging left something to be desired. Stubbs moved around, while the other musicians were restrained. The Chinese musicians were dressed beautifully in formal attire, but everyone else had “dressed down”. Zhang Liliang, resplendent in a white tie in the first half of the program, had removed the tie in the second half, leaving an incongruous open-necked wing collar visible.

The first half of the concert was titled “from West to East” and featured individual pieces from the western repertoire followed by four traditional Chinese pieces played by Wang Tainzhu and Dai Yin.

It began stiffly with a song by Handel. The other three “western” pieces, two of them arranged by Stubbs, were pleasant.

But it was the four Chinese pieces that saved the concert. All four pieces were charming and engaging,  but there were two highlights.

Dai Yin, played the Guzheng (or Chinese zither) in “Homeward-bound Fishermen” with style, grace and charm. It was thoroughly delightful.

For the final piece, she moved to the piano to accompany Wang Tainzhu, playing the Erhu, in a very lively “Horse Racing”, a piece that surely must be strictly for musicians of the highest virtuosic standard. It drew enthusiastic applause and cheering from the almost capacity audience.

I was looking forward to this concert. From the publicity, it sounded like it would be a fascinating fusion of western and eastern music. But, except for the Chinese elements of this concert, it was a disappointment.