Revived Shanghai orchestra to close China Festival

The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will give the China Festival a grand finale at the Carnegie Hall on Nov 10, under the baton of its new music director, Yu Long, with help from pianist Lang Lang.

The 45-year-old conductor has performed many concerts in the US, conducting orchestras from both China and the US.

The concert in the Stern Auditorium, however, will be special, Yu said in his interview with China Daily, because Isaac Stern, the late great US violinist to whom the hall was dedicated in 1996, played an important role in reviving classical music in China.

In June 1979 Stern embarked on a three-week visit to China at the invitation of the government and became the first Western soloist to perform publicly after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

He collaborated with China's symphony orchestra, visited the conservatories and coached music students. Murray Lerner filmed Stern's historical trip to China and made a documentary entitled From Mao to Mozart, which won an Academy Award in 1980.

Yu grew up during the "cultural revolution".

"At that time basically we were not allowed to play Western classical music," he recalled during an interview with China Daily on Thursday.

"I heard about Carnegie Hall for the first time from maestro Isaac Stern. When he visited China he talked a lot about concerts and told stories about Carnegie Hall and classical music," said Yu, whose wife, the violinist Vera Tsu Weiling, was one of the three students Stern coached in 1979.

"The concert in the Stern Auditorium could be considered a celebration of the 30th anniversary of his trip to China," Yu said.

Two years ago, Clive Gillinson, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall invited Yu and Chinese pianist Lang Lang, pipa artist Wu Man and composer Tan Dun to work on a festival program that highlights not only their personal perspectives and artistry, but also many different aspects of Chinese culture.

"A lot of Chinese people know that Carnegie Hall is the primary classical music performance space in the world. So it's certainly a great honor for Chinese orchestras and Chinese people that Carnegie Hall present such a festival celebrating Chinese culture," Yu said.

Yu led the China Philharmonic Orchestra and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra when they performed at New York's Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington in 2005.

This time, he brings the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the oldest symphony orchestra in China and possibly even in Asia.

The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is 130 years old, older than many Western orchestras, Yu said.

It's important to show Shanghai is not only a major financial center in the East, but also that culture and the arts are flourishing there, because the World Expo 2010 Shanghai is about to make the city the focus of the world, Yu said.

The history of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is inseparable from that of Western music in China.

It was established by the Municipal Council, the governing body of Shanghai's International Settlement, the name of the combined British and American foreign concessions in Shanghai between 1854 and 1943.

The orchestra started as the Shanghai Public Band and had about 20 Filipino musicians and a French conductor. By the end of the 1920s, the orchestra had become one of the city's cultural treasures, attracting such star soloists as Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz.

In 1951 the orchestra had its first Chinese conductor, Huang Yijun. Under his baton, the 56-member orchestra employed more than a dozen foreign musicians, most from Russia.

Conductor Chen Xieyang worked as music director from 1984. In his 25-year reign, the orchestra has served as a distinguished musical ambassador and recorded the Oscar-winning soundtrack to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But China has added more new orchestras in recent years, and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has lost its leading position.

Yu took over early this year and begins his inaugural season this fall. The opening concert at Shanghai Grand Theatre on Sept 26 was well received. "The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is back. Yu Long revived the old orchestra with passion and energy," said local critic Yang Jianguo.