SSO opens 140th anniversary season
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra opened its 2019/20 season on Friday night with a concert commemorating its 140th birthday.
Conducted by the orchestra's music director Yu Long, the show opened with a new commission, "Gift," by Grammy-nominated Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian.
It concluded with a moving scene when 13 former members of the orchestra, including 96-year-old cellist Zheng Deren, gathered on stage to receive flowers from current musicians.
"There are more music students in China today, and most musicians in orchestras are Chinese now, quite unlike when I started out," said Zheng, one of the first Chinese musicians to learn the cello.
Just a few days ahead of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the orchestra performed three pieces recording different times in history, including two from the 38-year-old Zhou, this season’s artist in residence.
"'Gift' was commissioned specifically for the SSO and is drawn from an old poem, which includes a line that translates as 'music is a gift of decency.' I really love this description," Zhou explained to Shanghai Daily shortly before the concert.
The next piece, Zhou's "Flowing Sleeves," was a cello concerto written for and performed by Wang Jian. It is inspired by the "flowing sleeves" of Chinese opera, in which performers use extended silk sleeves to reflect the emotions of the characters.
The concert concluded with the "Long March" symphony, written by composer and pianist Ding Shande in the early 1960s. Its first movement was debuted in 1961 and the complete piece was premiered in 1962, both by the SSO.
“The last 140 years have been a yarn that has kept spinning through three centuries, a story of the orchestra's integration with the city, a story that has taken root and blossomed in Shanghai," music director Yu said.