Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra Closes Its 2019-20 Season on 18 July 2020

with a Global Streaming Initiative To Be Delay-Streamed on 25 July

• SPO closes its season on Saturday, 18 July, with a full orchestra performing for a live audience, which will be delay-streamed on Saturday, 25 July
• Artistic Director ZHANG Yi will conduct music of Beethoven and Bruckner
• SPO will complete its Bruckner symphony cycle in the spring on 2021
• First orchestral performance at the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre since its reopening

On 18 July 2020, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) closes its 2019-20 season with a performance at the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre (SHOAC) before a live audience subject to social -distancing regulations. This will mark the first full-scale orchestral concert at SHOAC since it reopened on 20 May. The concert will be streamed on 25 July on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

The performance will begin at 7:30p.m. Beijing time on 18 July and will subsequently be delay-streamed starting at 1:00p.m. ET (7:00p.m. Central European Time) on 25 July on Facebook and Twitter. The stream will remain available for viewing for an indefinite period.

SPO Artistic Director ZHANG Yi will conduct the orchestra in a program designed to display the ensemble’s virtuosity in all its glory: Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic")  and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”). He will be joined by SONG Siheng, a Long Thibaud Award-winning pianist based in Shanghai, as the soloist in the Beethoven.

This concert will also mark the near-completion of the SPO’s ambitious undertaking to perform the complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, which are considered among the centerpieces of the Western orchestral canon. With this cycle, which it will complete in the spring of 2021, the SPO will become one of the first orchestras in Mainland China to have performed all nine Bruckner symphonies in successive seasons.

Since the 2018-19 season, the SPO has performed seven Bruckner symphonies under the baton of its resident conductors as well as varied guest conductors. The Third Symphony, originally scheduled to take place in March, had to be postponed until the spring of 2021 because of public health concerns. Its performance will complete the SPO's Bruckner cycle.

The SPO resumed its season on 15 June after 155 days of the shutdown that had begun in January — a period during which more than a dozen concerts had to be postponed or cancelled because of public health reasons during the coronavirus pandemic; more than 12 chamber music concerts have been streamed free of charge.

During the curtailed 2019-20 season — the SPO's 16^th season since adopting its current name in 2004 — the orchestra has performed 30 programs over 32 concerts, a decrease in the number of concerts of almost 30% due to restrictions caused by the pandemic compared to the 45 concerts (presenting 38 programs) that had originally been scheduled.

The 2020-21 season lineup will be announced on 25 August.

 

1:00p.m. ET (7:00p.m. Central European Time) on 25 July

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Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra

The Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) was founded in 1956 as the Shanghai Film Orchestra. In 1996 it was renamed Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, and it assumed its present name in 2004. ZHANG Yi is the Artistic Director.

Over the years, the SPO has inspired the cultural landscape of Shanghai by collaborating with a star-studded array of conductors including Joe Hisaishi, Peter Flor, Max Pommer, Cristian Macelaru, and Thomas Sanderling, as well as such soloists as Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Peter-Lukas Graf, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Jessye Norman, Yo-Yo Ma, Támás Vásáry, Boris Berman, Paul Badura-Skoda, Robert Blocker, Alexei Volodin, and Vincent Lucas.

The orchestra performs regularly at major festivals and halls in Europe as well as in such countries as Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Australia. Through its partnerships with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the SPO introduces the richness of contemporary music and the top level of international orchestral musicians to audiences in Shanghai.

 

ZHANG Yi, conductor

German-trained conductor ZHANG Yi is Music Director of the National Ballet of China and Artistic Director of the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and the Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from the Saarbrücken Hochschule für Musik, where he studied with Prof. Max Pommer, he returned to Beijing and has since conducted major orchestras in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the Macau Orchestra, Taipei Symphony, London Philharmonic, German Radio Philharmonic, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, and Kungliga Operan, among others.

 

SONG Siheng, pianist

Pianist SONG Siheng was born in Shanghai, China, in 1981 and is widely regarded as one of the finest pianists of his generation.

He studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris with Marian Rybicki and at the Paris Conservatory with Olivier Gardon and Dominique Merlet. In 2004 he received the Grand Prize at the Long Thibaud Piano Concours, making him the first Chinese artist to win this prestigious competition.

He has toured extensively worldwide since then, appearing at such major festival as la Roque d'Antheron, the Ruhr Festival, the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, and the Chopin Festival in Duszniki, and he has collaborated with the Orchestra de Paris, Orchestra Philharmonic de Radio France, Orchestra Nationale de France, Orchestra Nationale de Lille, Orchestra Phiharmonic de Monte-Carlo, NRD Symphony Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and others.

Since 2010, he has concertized with a new piano recital format that embraces multimedia technology and theatrical effects, aiming to adapt classical music to the 21^st century. He has created and performed five of these recital programs to date: Nodame Cantabile, Chopin Love, In Search of Haruki Kurakami, Reading Pakin, and Blue.

 

 

 

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Press Contact for the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra
SHEN Jie | 61194887@qq.com | 86 135 8553 0991