RAVEL：Ma Mère l'Oye (full ballet)

 

- intermission -

BEETHOVEN：Symphony No.6 in F major, Op.68, "Pastoral"

 

*The Program is subject to change

 

ANIMATOR AND ILLUSTRATOR: GRÉGOIRE PONT
‘Grégoire Pont's remarkable work avoids easy technical effects and always sticks to the truth of text and music. Never had the meaning of 'spells' been so well embodied. The result is a masterwork where the
stage setting shows unexpected details, designed with a great sense of poetry on the screen' ClassiqueNews,L'Enfantetles sortilege s, Opéra National de Lyon An exceptional artistic talent already as a young child, Grégoire Pont attended the Animation Workshop in Paris where he studied Norman McLaren’s techniques of animation dynamics. He graduated from the Penninghen school of Graphic Arts (ESAG) in 1992 and shortly after directed his first animated film, Le concerto du chat, with abstract shapes dancing to the sounds of the Orchestre de Paris at Salle Pleyel.

 

A great lover of classical music, Pont has always been passionate about making it more popular and accessible to both children and adults by means of animation. He developed a new performance concept called ‘Cinesthetics’ where he draws and animates live to a musical performance. He has appeared at Royal Festival Hall, Paris Philharmonie, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Suntory Hall and Gothenburg Concert Hall, collaborating with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Kazushi Ono, Stéphane Denève, François-Xavier Roth and Dalia Stasevska. Recent highlights have included the premiere of Moonlight on the Eiffel Tower at Tongyeong, Peter and the Wolf at Théâtre des Champs Elysées and Our Precious Planet, a piece exploring the effects of human activity on our environment, in co-production with the Barbican Centre and Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne.

 

Pont has also received great acclaim for bringing his innovative animation techniques to the operatic repertoire. Together with British director James Bonas, he conceived productions at Opéra de Lyon of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges and L’heure espagnole. Their unique approach has led to these productions being presented by houses around the world, including Dresden Opera, Opéra de Lille, Royal Opera House, Muscat, and San Francisco and Cincinnati symphony halls. Most recently they have achieved great success with titles including Hans Abrahamsen’s Snow Queen for Opéra National du Rhin, Emma Bovary for National Ballet of Canada and Candide for Welsh National Opera. This season they premiere a production of Die Zauberflöte at Göteborg Opera.

 

Pont also illustrates books for children, most notably Les Excalibrius, and has made numerous animations for TV commercials, educational animated shorts and music video clips. For three seasons, Pont worked with the French conductor François-Xavier Roth and his groundbreaking orchestra Les Siècles on Presto! (France Television). This animated series of musical works was seen by over three million viewers on weekly primetime television.

 

Conductor: Yukuang Jin
Yukuang Jin was appointed as the principal conductor of the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra starting from the 2024/2025 music season. Founder of Camerata Novus-Classica, winner of the Neeme Järvi Prize 2023, runner-up of two international conducting competitions, one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Conductors” in China and convener of the “Project Spring Bird”. On January 8, 2021, Yukuang Jin established Camerata Novus-Classica, led his orchestra to win the “Young Musician Award” at the 24th Beijing International Music Festival in October 2021, the “New Artist of the Year” of Ganlan Art Award at the end of 2021. In 2022, Jin was selected as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Conductors in China” nominated by the Art Department of the Ministry of Culture and the Publicity Department of China.

 

In August 2023, Jin won the Neeme Järvi Prize at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Switzerland. In 2025, Jin became one of the six designated winners of the Second International Conducting Competition Rotterdam after advancing from the semi-finals. In the past years, Yukuang Jin has collaborated with Grammy award-winning artists like Time for Three, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Laufey; musicians with international reputations like Denis Kozhukhin, Feng Ning, Jing Zhao, Alexander Gavrylyuk, Yijie Shi, Paul Huang, Ying Huang and so on. Yukuang Jin has worked as an assistant conductor and student with the following conductors: Jaap van Zweden, Chung Myung-Whun, Paavo Järvi, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Markus Stenz, Shao-Chia Lü, Daniele Gatti and Johannes Schlaefli.

 

Yukuang Jin has collaborated with leading orchestras including the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Mozarteum Orchestra, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Rotterdam, Gstaad Festival Orchestra and Klangforum Wien. His collaborations also extend to Asian ensembles such as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. In recent years, Jin has collaborated with over 40 orchestras, conducting more than 100 performances.

 

Yukuang Jin was admitted to the Conducting Program at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music High School in 2015, where he studied under Professors Xiaoou Zhao, Guoyong Zhang, and Daye Lin. He is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Conducting at the Zurich University of the Arts under Professor Christoph-Mathias Mueller, while continuing his artistic practice with his long-time mentor, Professor Long Yu.

 

Shanghai Opera House Orchestra (SOHO)
Founded in 1956, the Shanghai Opera House Orchestra (SOHO) is one of the nation-famous music performing groups and supreme symphony orchestras in China. More than being expert in the accompaniment to operas and ballets, SOHO holds symphonic concerts frequently and performs works of composers at home and abroad in different periods and styles. In recent years, led by Wei Song, Xu Zhong and Shi Yijie, SOHO has participated in a lot of performances, such as western classical opera Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, Turandot, La bohème, Tosca, Otello, Falstaff, La Fille du régiment, Aida, Attila, Carmen, Der fliegende Holländer, Nabucco, Das Land des Lächelns, Don Giovanni, Romeo et Juliette, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci and etc; the Chinese classic opera Jiang Jie, original choral symphony The Land of Rejuvenation, original opera Li Dazhao, Shen Nong - A Legendary Ruler, Tian Han, March of the Volunteers, A Dream of Splendor; the Chinese opera Thunderstorm, The Wager; oratorio Messiah. Carmina Burana; symphonie dramatique Romeo et Juliette; The Yellow River Cantata, Long March Suits, classical Chinese and western symphonies: the complete works of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto and 9 Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4/5/6, Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 and Violin Concerto No.3, He Zhanhao and Chen Gang’s Butterfly Lovers etc.The SOHO also serves as accompaniment for ballets e.g. The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Manon, Don Quixote, and original dance drama Early Spring, Chang E, Dance of Calligraphy in 353 AD. For many years, the SOHO has jointly hosted concerts with numerous conductors and musicians, e.g. Daniel Oren, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, John Nelson, Neeme Järvi, Franz Welser-Möst, Fabio Luisi, Will Humburg, Thomas Sanderling, Markus Stenz, Zoltan Kocsis, Maurice Peress, Jan Latham-Koenig, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Angela Gheorghiu, Maxim Vengerov, Hui He, Wang Jian, Liao Changyong and Shi Yijie etc. SOHO also takes an active part in domestic and international music festivals and cultural exchange programs, and has visited countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Finland and regions such as Hong Kong and Macao. In 2019, SOHO made its debut with a tour in the United States of America.