Programme
Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23
 I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso - Allegro con spirito
 II. Andantino semplice - Prestissimo - Tempo I
 III. Allegro con fuoco

 

- Intermission -

 

Muisic: Dmitri Shostakovich 
Symphony No.5 in D Minor, Op. 47
 I. Moderato - Allegro non troppo
 II. Allegretto
 III. Largo
 IV. Allegro non troppo

 

The above information, including performance times, lineups, programmes and ticket prices, are all subject to change without prior notice and for reference only.

 

 

Conductor: YU Long
Hailed by The New York Times as “the most powerful figure in China’s classical music scene,” the conductor and impresario YU Long has devoted his illustrious career to steering China’s growing connection to classical music. Maestro YU currently holds the top position in the country's most prominent orchestras: Artistic Director of the China Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing, and Music Director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He is also the Principal Guest Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, co-director of Shanghai’s Music in the Summer Air festival, and Chair of the Artistic Committee of the Beijing Music Festival. He is currently Vice President of the China Musicians Association and Chairman of its League of China Orchestras.

 

One of many career highlights, in 2005 YU led the China Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) on a 40-day international tour in 22 cities throughout North America and Europe. He also led the CPO in the first Chinese orchestral performance at the Vatican’s Paul VI Auditorium in 2008, and the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2014.

 

Since taking the reins of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (SSO) in 2009, YU has led the orchestra on a tour of the United States and Europe, with performances at the BBC Proms and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw as well as the Edinburgh, Lucerne and Ravinia festivals. In 2018, he became the first Chinese conductor to sign an exclusive relationship with Deutsche Grammophon, offering the SSO a global release and distribution partnership, and leading to the recording releases of Orff: Carmina Burana (Live From the Forbidden City) (January 2019), Gateways (June 2019), The Song of the Earth (July 2021) and Aaron Zigman: Émigré (June 2024).

 

As Music Director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra (GSO) from 2003 to 2023, YU expanded the orchestra’s repertory, its educational mission, and its touring—to Europe, the U.S., Australia, Africa, and the Middle East. After 20 years at the helm, Maestro YU stepped down as Music Director of GSO in 2023 and is now Honorary Music Director for Life and the Chair of the Artistic Committee of GSO and YMCG (Youth Music Culture The Greater Bay Area).

 

Also a towering figure on the international stage, Maestro YU has conducted many highly acclaimed orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Staatsoper Hamburg, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

 

YU has received numerous prestigious awards and recognitions, including the 2010 Person of the Year in the Arts Field, the 2013 China Arts Award, an Honorary Academician from the Central Conservatory of Music, the Arts Patronage Award of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation; Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; L’onorificenza diCommendatore dell’Ordine al Merito, from the Italian government; Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest order of merit; the Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council; and the Samuel Simons Sanford Award from the Yale School of Music. In 2016, YU was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2018, he was conferred an Honorary Doctorate from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

 

Artist: ZHANG Haochen
Since his gold medal win at the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, having been the first Asian gold medalist in the history of this top international piano competition, ZHANG Haochen has captivated audiences all over the world with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination, and spectacular virtuosity. In 2022, Haochen's collection of essays on classical music entitled On the Other Side of Performing was published in China's Mainland.

 

In August 2023, Haochen released his latest album on BIS, performing Liszt's Transcendental Études. Due to the widespread acclaim he received, Haochen graced the cover of International Piano, an authoritative worldwide piano magazine, in September of the same year; the following month, the album was awarded Gramophone's Recording of the Month. Haochen also released three other studio albums on BIS: "The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos" with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann in October 2022, his debut concerto album in July 2019 performing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Dima Slobodeniouk, and his first solo album in February 2017.

 

Highlights of Haochen's 2023-24 season include the record-breaking "Encounter the Late: Haochen ZHANG's Piano Recital 2023 China Tour", an US tour with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, returns to The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Filarmonica della Scala, and debuts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orchestre de chambre de Paris.

 

Haochen regularly holds recitals and concerto tours with symphony orchestras worldwide. In recent seasons, he has collaborated with conductors including Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Valery Gergiev, Michael Tilson Thomas, Myung-Whun Chung, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Tugan Sokhiev, Gianandrea Noseda, Vasily Petrenko, David Robertson, Long Yu, and others, and with renowned orchestras such as the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and so on. His performances have reached many of the world's prestigious music venues, including the Berliner Philharmonie, the Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Teatro alla Scala, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, etc.

 

Haochen has already appeared at many of the world's leading festivals, including the BBC Proms, the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Festival international de Piano de La Roque d'Anthéron, the Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest and others. As an avid chamber musician, he has collaborated with ensembles such as the Dover, Takács, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Brentano Quartets.

 

ZHANG Haochen was born in Shanghai in 1990. At age five, he held his first piano recital at the Shanghai Concert Hall. As a child, he studied under LIN Heng, WU Zijie, and WANG Jianzhong, and from 2001, he studied with the esteemed Professor DAN Zhaoyi. In 2005, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied under Gary Graffman, and later furthered his studies in Vienna with pianist Andreas Haefliger. Haochen's performances at the Cliburn Competition were released to critical acclaim by Harmonia Mundi in 2009. He is featured in Peter Rosen's award-winning documentary chronicling the 2009 Cliburn Competition, A Surprise in Texas.

 

 

Presenter: China Philharmonic Orchestra
It has been 25 years since the inception of China Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) amid miraculous development. Devoted to becoming China’s top orchestra as well as a leading figure in Asia with international reputation, the CPO has achieved an astonishing leap forward and won wide attention home and abroad during its 23 seasons.

 

With the patronage of leaders of CCP and Chinese Government, China Philharmonic Orchestra was founded based on China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra on May 25, 2000, administered by the State Administration of Radio and Television. Currently, Li Nan serves as the President while Long Yu is the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the orchestra. As one of the youngest and most dynamic symphony orchestras in China, the CPO takes pride in professionalism, a role model to be followed by its Chinese peers.

 

In the spring of 2009, the CPO was named one of the 10 Most Inspiring Orchestras by Gramophone online. The CPO has presented more than 3,000 music compositions in its more than 1,000 performances, attracting millions of audiences. Its domestic and international tours accumulated more than one million kilometers, an equivalent of circling the world 20 times. The CPO’s world tour in 2005, a “diplomatic ice-breaking” concert at Paul VI Audience Hall in Vatican, the 2014 debut at BBC Proms, the “Tour of the Silk Road” and “Tour of the Maritime Silk Road” in 2015 and 2016 being the most significant oversea presence of the orchestra. Also worth mentioning are Tour of the Americans, Asian Tour, Tour of the Mediterranean as well as Tour of Central and East Europe, all in recent years. The CPO visited Russia in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and also visited Japan in 2015, 2017 and 2019. These international tours have become landmark events in bringing Chinese symphonic music to the world.

 

In the past 25 years, the CPO has presented numerous premieres that are virtually nowhere to be found elsewhere in China. An active promoter of China’s contemporary music, China Philharmonic has established its tradition of presenting concerts dedicated to Chinese music during each of its seasons and commissioning domestic and overseas composers for new works.

During the years between 2000 and 2006, China Philharmonic collaborated with Deutsche Grammophon and released 3 CDs, making itself the first Chinese orchestra to work with a major label and release recordings internationally. In 2012, China Philharmonic Orchestra released a 100-CD box-set of live recordings of its previous seasons.