Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will celebrate its 145th anniversary in September
The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra closed the 2023-2024 season with Mahler's "Symphony No. 3."
The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra concluded its 2023-2024 season with Mahler's majestic "Symphony No. 3" and announced a diverse schedule for the new season.
The new season will begin in the first week of September with a concert commemorating the orchestra's 145th anniversary and Jaguar Shanghai Symphony Hall's 10th anniversary.
That will be followed by two world premieres, German baritone Matthias Georne as the orchestra's artist-in-residence, 11 concerts led by music director Yu Long, and a star-studded roster of international soloists and conductors.
On September 6, Georne will perform the concluding movement of Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde." The performance will include violinist Hilary Hahn and cellist Qin Liwei, who will perform alongside the orchestra led by Yu, and three other conductors, Cao Peng, Chen Xieyang, and Hou Runyu. They will recount some of the highlights from the orchestra's 145-year history, including masterworks by Wagner, Mozart, Mahler, and Tchaikovsky, as well as iconic works by Chinese composers Ma Sicong and Huang Yijun.
Baritone Matthias Georne, the 2024-2025 season's artist-in-residence, will perform in two concerts.
There will be two world premieres, both of them commissioned by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Conductor Huang Yi, erhu (a Chinese two-stringed instrument) soloist Lu Yiwen, and flutist Feng Tianshi will perform Pulitzer Prize-winning Zhou Long's "Nine Odes" on November 2. Elliot Leung, a 28-year-old who has scored for several Chinese films and made Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia list for the Arts in 2022, will perform "Chinese Kitchen" in the second concert.
Music director Yu will lead the opening concert on September 8, featuring three-time Grammy-winner Hahn for Bernstein's "Serenade (after Plato's Symposium)." The final concert, conducted by Yu, will feature Grammy-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich playing Beethoven's "Violin Concerto in D" on June 26, 2025.
Three-time Grammy winner Hilary Hahn will feature in the first two concerts.
In October, the Cape Town Opera Company and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will perform a semi-staged version of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" under the direction of Kazem Abdullah.
A series of commemorative concerts will take place throughout the season, including an all-Italian program to commemorate Puccini's 100th death anniversary, a repertoire to celebrate Ravel's 150th birth anniversary, and a concert to honor composer Aaron Avshalomov's 130th birthday, which his grandson David Avshalomov will conduct.
Aaron Avshalomov moved to Shanghai in 1918 and relocated to the United States in 1947. He worked closely with Chinese musicians, arranging Nie Er's newly composed "March of the Volunteers" for a film in 1935. The People's Republic of China later adopted the song as its national anthem.
The orchestra will perform three pieces by the composer, including "Symphonic Poem Hutungs of Peking," which is one of several of his works that combine Chinese melodic themes with Western orchestral composition techniques.
