Shanghai Concert Hall's richer, more diverse new season
An array of top artists from around the world will be featured in the new season of the Shanghai Concert Hall, starting with the mini music festival "Bach Project," with famed violinist Ning Feng as the festival's resident artist to perform three Bach concerts, along with three seminars, a screening and other events.
Starting on September 22, the new season will consist of 263 concert outreach programs covering six sections ― classical, diversity, traditional Chinese, outreach, special presentation and activities.
"The repertoire of the new season is among the best in recent years, with richer and more diverse content, and especially the return of many overseas artists," said Fang Jing, general manager of the concert hall.
"Under the theme of 'Melodious Encounter,' we hope to better serve as the city's cultural landmark and a platform for people of different ages, backgrounds and genders to share through music."
Nearly two-thirds of the program features overseas artists, with an array of classic music stars from home and abroad ― violinists Vadim Repin, Daniel Hope, Ning Feng, Leonidas Kavakos, and Akiko Suwanai; pianists Myung-whun Chung and Chen Sa; cellists Wang Jian, and Sheku Kanneh-Maason;and soprano Angela Gheorghiu, among others.
The concert hall will also host a rare full program of the concert version of Handel's opera "Rodelinda," by the English Concert under the baton of Harry Bicket, whose first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera was a production of "Rodelinda."
It is a rare full program of a baroque opera and the Asian premiere of "Rodelinda."
The performance will feature the original cast of the baroque orchestra's 2021 recording of the opera, which was selected as album of the year by many classic music journals.
The new season will also see musicians and chamber ensembles from the world's best symphony orchestras bring a variety of tunes to Shanghai.
The Vienna Berlin Music Club, with three members from the Vienna Philharmonic, two from the Berlin Philharmonic, an Austrian pianist, and a violinist, will bring "Philharmonix" next month, which features an integration of classical, jazz, Klezmer, Latin and pop music.
The Philharmonic String Quintet Berlin will also return in October, after five years, performing masterpieces from Beethoven and Paganini.
The new season's recitals feature winners from four top international violin competitions.
Vienna-based violinist Repin became the youngest winner of the violin section of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels at age 17 in 1988, and is a returning guest of the historic concert hall.
Japanese violinist Suwanai was the youngest winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990, aged 18. She was also awarded second prize in the Paganini Competition in 1988 and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1989. In November, she will perform Complete Violin Sonatas by Brahms.
Next May, Greek violinist Kavakos will perform at the Shanghai Concert Hall for his third time, playing Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Bach. It is the same concert hall at which the violinist held his first China concert in 2014.
