China Daily Global Edition (USA)
A moving performance
Work by composer Zhao Jiping set to feature on NCPA Orchestra’s first nationwide tour, Chen Nan reports.
The China NCPA Orchestra, the resident orchestra of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, will kick off its first nationwide tour on Saturday from Nanjing, Jiangsu province. The tour, through April 17, will include five other cities: Shanghai, Wuhan, Hubei province, Changsha, Hunan province, and Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Guangdong province.
Under the baton of conductor Lyu Jia, who is the music director of the China NCPA Orchestra, it will perform various programs, including composer Zhao Jiping’s Violin Concerto No 1, Austrian composer Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No 6 in A Major and German composer Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No 3 in F Major.
With 2021 marking the 120th death anniversary of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, the China NCPA Orchestra will also perform arias from his operas, such as The Troubadour, Nabucco and La Traviata.
Violinist Lyu Siqing, soprano Song Yuanming and tenor Wang Chong will feature in the concerts.
“We are very excited to launch our first nationwide tour,’’ says Lyu Jia, who led the China NCPA Orchestra on its first North American tour in 2014. “When the coronavirus pandemic hit early last year, we did many online concerts and programs, which received warm feedback from fans across the country. It inspired us to give performances for audiences of more Chinese cities.”
The orchestra returned to North America in 2017 and performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Center and other major venues in the United States and Canada.
Since it opened in December 2007, the NCPA, located on Chang’an Avenue, has become an iconic landmark in the capital with its distinctive architecture and has attracted a long list of top artists and companies.
The birth of the China NCPA Orchestra was to meet the demand of the venue’s tight performance schedule, especially for its own operatic productions by working with international artists.
Chen Zuohuang, the NCPA’s founding music director, served as its first chief conductor, and Lyu Jia took over from the second season in 2012.
“When I started to work with the orchestra, I had a vision of building it up to a world-level orchestra,” recalls Lyu, who has worked with renowned opera houses and symphony orchestras, such as Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. “The musicians of the orchestra are very young and passionate. They are welltrained and open to new experiences.”
Under the baton of Lyu Jia, the China NCPA Orchestra performed a number of German and Austrian works, which he believes, are the very foundation of classical music. It was for this reason that Lyu Jia chose Bruckner and Brahms for the orchestra’s first China tour.
“Compared to world-renowned symphony orchestras, some of which are more than 100 years old, the China NCPA Orchestra is very young. It has just completed its first 10 years. I would say that they found their voice in this time. They need more time to strengthen their voice and reach a higher level,” Lyu Jia adds.
“All the concerts we are going to perform during this tour will be at major halls. Music lovers will take this opportunity to get to know the China NCPA Orchestra,” says Ren Xiaolong, managing director of the orchestra.
Ren notes that the 2020-21 season marks the 10th season for the China NCPA Orchestra. The original plan was to have an 18-month-long session from March 2020 to August 2021. However, the orchestra had to change the programs due to COVID-19. In November, it announced the 2020-21 season at the NCPA. This features music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Gustav Mahler, among others, as well as the world premiere of works by Chinese composers.
Commissioned by the orchestra, Chinese-Australian composer Julian Yu’s piece, Evolution, premiered on Dec 20. During the ongoing tour, the orchestra will perform it again.
Violin Concerto No 1 by Chinese composer Zhao Jiping is one of the most performed music works by the orchestra during the past few years. Commissioned by the NCPA, the music piece was performed when the China NCPA Orchestra toured North America in 2017.
“It’s one of my favorite Chinese music works, which is very beautiful and has the sounds of China,” says violinist Lyu Siqing, who will play Zhao’s Violin Concerto No 1 with the China NCPA Orchestra during the tour. Zhao, 75, who is known for his film scores for Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and To Live (1993), as well as director Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine (1993), spent 10 years working on the music piece.
According to Ren, besides the nationwide tour, the orchestra will give 36 performances up to August. Last November, the orchestra recorded Beethoven’s epic piece, Incidental Music to Goethe’s Egmont, Op 84 under the baton of conductor Lyu Jia. Based on the translation by Li Jianming, the Chinese version of Egmont was performed by soprano Song Yuanming. On Tuesday, the recording was released.
The China NCPA Orchestra is very young. It has just completed its first 10 years. I would say that they found their voice in this time.”
Lyu Jia, music director, China NCPA Orchestra