China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Sounds of home
The National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra has begun a six-city tour of North America in which it is performing classical music with characteristics of home. Chen Nan reports.
NCPA Orchestra includes pipa in its North American tour
The National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra is on a six-city tour in North America, including Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, until Nov 7.
The tour will see the orchestra make its debut performance at the Carnegie Hall on Monday.
Under the baton of Lyu Jia, the chief conductor of the orchestra, the tour features violinist Ning Feng and French cellist Gautier Capucon.
Chinese pianist Zhang Haochen, 27, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and a Gold Medal and First Prize winner at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, has stepped in for Lang Lang, who is recovering from an inflammation in his left arm.
Also performing on the tour is Grammy Award-nominated pipa player Wu Man.
The Hangzhou-born and San Diego-based musician has imbued the 2,000-yearold, four-stringed Chinese instrument, the pipa, with a contemporary touch.
She will perform American composer Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Pipa with String Orchestra.
“Lou Harrison was commissioned by the Lincoln Center and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra to write the piece in 1997 when he was 80 years old. The composer spent time in Taiwan in his early years and he was familiar with Asian instruments. He wasn’t afraid to do anything,” Wu said in Beijing, before performing at a send-off concert for the NCPA Orchestra on Oct 18.
Back in 1997, she premiered the work with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies.
“It’s fascinating to have a Western composer write for a Chinese instrument. I am looking forward to performing with the NCPA Orchestra,” Wu says.
“Many of the musicians in the orchestra are from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where I graduated; the conductor Lyu Jia, for example. It’s like a reunion.”
During the tour, the orchestra will premiere two pieces by Chinese composers in the US — Luan Tan by composer Chen Qigang and Violin Concerto No 1 by Zhao Jiping.
Luan Tan is Chen’s first work of orchestral variations, based on a musical style in Chinese drama of the same name, which originated in the 1600s during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
According to Chen, who wrote the theme song, You and Me, for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he wanted to set a challenge for himself and to produce something different from his past works, which are usually described as being “melancholic” and “refined”.
He started to work on the piece in 2010 and didn’t finish it until 2015.
Zhao, whose credits include scores for a number of awardwinning TV series and movies such as Red Sorghum (1987) directed by Zhang Yimou, spent a year turning his idea for his first violin concerto into reality. He had been thinking about the piece for nearly a decade.
“In terms of music language, it has a very strong Chinese color, whereas the theme borrows from the traditional European concerto form. I hope this violin concerto can speak to the world in a Chinese voice,” said Zhao in an early interview.
The other highlights of the tour repertoires will include Chen’s Reflet d’un Temps Disparu for cello and orchestra, Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op 43 and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No 4 in E Minor, Op 98.
“The NCPA Orchestra is young and dynamic. The average age of musicians is about 30,” says Lyu, the conductor.
Lyu was born in Shanghai, graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and won the Golden Prize and Favorite Conductor Award in the international conducting competition, Antonio Pedrotti, in Trento, Italy, in 1988.
In 1991, he was appointed as the chief conductor of the Italian opera house, Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, making him not only the opera house’s first chief conductor from Asia, but also its youngest.
“This year marks the 10th anniversary of the National Center for the Performing Arts. During the past decade, NCPA has witnessed and promoted the development of classical music scene in China. The NCPA Orchestra also has grown into one of the best orchestras in China,” says Lyu.
The NCPA Orchestra is young and dynamic. The average age of musicians is about 30.” Lyu Jia, conductor