The New Yorker: The Return of Mid-Century American Symphonies

The New Yorker
Russell Platt

Gerard Schwarz, pictured here in 1982, conducts works by David Diamond, William Schuman, and Jacob Druckman, which recall an America that no longer exists. (Photograph by Jack Mitchell / Getty)

The conductor Gerard Schwarz’s upcoming concert with the Juilliard Orchestra, at Alice Tully Hall on Thursday, highlights an essential but overlooked period of American composition: the great mid-twentieth-century symphonies.

There was a time—the late nineteen-eighties and nineties—when it seemed as if the American symphonic repertory was finally taking a definite shape. Neo-Romanticism was the rage among young composers, who were in search of a usable past, and among conductors, too, who were on the lookout for music of recent vintage that their audiences might embrace, or at least tolerate. I remember attending, around 1990, a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra at which the conductor Leonard Slatkin, a champion of American composers, tested his theory of the ideal program: it would contain a contemporary work, a twentieth-century classic, and a good old classical warhorse. The centerpiece of the concert was Symphony No. 3 by William Schuman (1910–1992), and it anchored the evening emotionally. (It was convincingly preceded by the music of Joan Tower, who is now an admired elder stateswoman, and followed by the music of Brahms.) Written just before America’s entry into the Second World War, the Schuman piece was a perfect balance of mid-century American qualities: lyrical but muscular, sensitive but optimistic, spikily chromatic but clearly tonal, learned in its craft but accessible in impact. The audience, especially revved up by the work’s wallop of a finale, went nuts. Surely, we thought, the finest works of Schuman—and of such contemporaries as Walter Piston, David Diamond, Samuel Barber, and Leonard Bernstein—were here to stay.

Well, three decades later, while Barber and Bernstein have become fixtures of the American repertory, both here and abroad, Schuman, Diamond, and Piston have not been so lucky. Why? You could say that most orchestral administrators would like two warhorses per program, thank you, along with a manageable and brief contemporary work that won’t get in the way. You could also say that the sheer melodic genius of Barber and Bernstein gave audiences a set of familiar musical objects that would greet them warmly at every recurrence. (Barber’s Adagio for Strings is the ultimate example.) But you could say, too, that the mid-century America in which these composers wrote their finest works—the optimistic New Deal consensus that gave us victory over the Depression and the Axis, which carried us into the first wave of the civil-rights era, with its benchmark achievements—no longer exists. The nineteen-nineties, the decade of Clintonian peace and prosperity, which welcomed these pieces back, was a sunset, not a dawn.

One person who never got the message is the distinguished conductor Gerard Schwarz, now a free agent after long stints as the music director of the Seattle Symphony and the Mostly Mozart Festival, who has spent a lifetime advocating for the American symphonic school. He comes to Alice Tully Hall on Thursday night to conduct the Juilliard Symphony in the Fourth Symphony of Diamond, the Sixth Symphony of Schuman, and the Viola Concerto of Jacob Druckman, a younger contemporary of theirs who was Schuman’s successor as the most brilliant orchestral thinker of American composition, as well as its most powerful potentate.

I love this repertory, and Schwarz’s program led me to dive back into some favorite recordings. Let’s start with the Diamond Fourth (1945), as does Schwarz. Diamond was a complicated man but a straightforward composer, and his best work combines a rock-solid technique based in the music of Bach and Stravinsky with a direct and openhearted American mood. The Fourth’s divertimento-like first movement is affable and airy but driven and intense:

Schuman’s Sixth Symphony, a one-movement work of tragic breadth, was written in 1948, for the Dallas Symphony, just after the war that the Third Symphony’s appearance had heralded. But in the midst of the war he composed what, to me, is his finest symphony, and perhaps the most perfect one of the American canon, the Fifth (Symphony for Strings). Its slow second movement, which combines genuine elegy with angered vigor, is of shattering lyrical power; the vanishing of this piece from the stages of America’s major orchestras is truly bizarre. The classic recording is Leonard Bernstein’s, with the New York Philharmonic:

The entirely postwar career of Druckman (1928–96) marks the era when Americana composers had to face up to the challenge of international modernism, and the more cerebral worlds of Webern, Boulez, and late Stravinsky. Druckman, who trained at Juilliard and in Paris, and who spent the final decades of his prestigious academic career at the Yale School of Music, became a master of the new aesthetic but was never completely absorbed by it. Druckman’s great gift was his ability to infuse his modernist impulses with the gamut of sensuality, from the most delicate refinement to the utmost crudeness, in startlingly vivid instrumental hues. An album by the Philadelphia Orchestra, in glorious full gleam, on the New World Records label, features not only Druckman’s Viola Concerto (1978), a gripping and dramatic piece, but also “Counterpoise” (1994), a lovely orchestral song cycle that was his last major work. The extreme contrast between the texts that Druckman chose for the piece—two poems in English, by Emily Dickinson, and two more in French, by Guillaume Apollinaire—symbolize not only Druckman’s creative conflict but also the struggle of intellect and instinct that remains essential in American culture.

The New York Times: Hear the Martha Argerich Recording That Inspired Yekwon Sunwoo

The New York Times
By Joshua Barone

Martha Argerich, one of the greatest pianists in the world, rarely plays in New York. But on Oct. 20, she will return to Carnegie Hall after a decade away to perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. For her younger fans, this may be the first opportunity to hear her in person.

Being a devotee of the elusive Ms. Argerich, 76, most often means being a follower of her diverse and much-adored catalog of recordings. Her albums, which have been in circulation since the 1960s, have been formative for many musicians who have come after her.

“A young pianist has to know her work,” Vikingur Olafsson, 33, said in an interview. “She has influenced my generation in ways that cannot be overestimated.”

We asked some of the most talented younger pianists (and one harpsichordist) to share and discuss their favorite Argerich recordings. Their answers — and the music — are below.

Yekwon Sunwoo
Ravel: ‘Scarbo’ from ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’

Yekwon Sunwoo, the 28-year-old South Korean pianist who won this year’s Cliburn Competition, loved Ms. Argerich’s recording of “Gaspard de la Nuit,” but then he found a video of her playing the piece.

The first movement, “Ondine,” had a “wonderful sense of singing melody while the waves never stopped with such grace — effortless,” he said. And the finale, “Scarbo,” both “evaporated into the atmosphere” and “sparkled with so many different layers of sounds.”

Mr. Sunwoo looked to Ms. Argerich’s “Scarbo” for inspiration when he learned the piece. “I particularly admired her incredible velocity over the keyboard, but with musical intentions,” he said. “I tried to create more drama and sweeping gestures like she does.”

Miroirs CA: Anne Akiko Meyers with Philharmonia Orchestra

Mirroirs CA
By Leonne Lewis

Anne Akiko Meyers gives transcendent and breathtaking performances in this new release of works by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016), Karol Szymanowski and Maurice Ravel – using her Ex-Vieuxtemps 1741 Guarneri del Gesu - with beautifully crafted support from the Philharmonia Orchestra under Kristjan Jarvi.

Szymanowski’s first violin concerto, Op. 35, Ravel’s Tzigane and Rautavaara’s Fantasia all have the element of fantasy and rhapsodic sweep, particularly Fantasia which Meyers commissioned and premiered in March of this year with the Kansas City Symphony. While this celebrated Finnish composer’s works may not be well known to American audiences, Rautavaara’s early studies did include The Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions.

One may detect in his writing hints of countryman Sibelius with overtones of The Swan of Tuonela, for example, but Rautavaara’s compositional style seems to contain a unique, lush and brooding landscape of intertwining melodies and imitative sequences between violin and orchestra.

From the opening chord, the listener enters a sound world that is absolutely mesmerizing for its dark, overlapping textures where demure to red-hot melodic waves of sonority from brass and strings provide a backdrop of atmospheric tension for Meyer’s flowing passagework. Her tone takes on an ethereal quality that goes right to the heart and core of the work’s veil of mystery.

She also displays an affinity for Szymanowski’s violin concerto (1916), an impressive piece of orchestrated splashes, clashes, interludes of harp, winds, especially flutes and an opening Vivace Assai that conjures up the opening temperament of Ravel’s piano concerto in G major. This composer’s Mazurkas for piano, among other compositions are worth a listen.

Meyer’s account contains a kinda introspective elusivity that includes lingering slides AND a display of turbocharged fingerwork in the Cadenza that has the characteristics of a Paganini Caprice gone avant-garde – of which we might also thank Polish violinist Paul Kochanski for input to this work, to whom it is dedicated.

Meyer’s declamatory bow strokes in the opening of Tzigane combined with rhythmic punch and rich harmonics brought this gypsy inspired work to a frenzied conclusion. It’s not often that collaboration between orchestra and soloist is so perfectly matched but supernova violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Kristjan Jarvi have hit a home run, even a grand slam with this recording!

Newstalk 1620 WTAW: Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra

Newstalk 1620 WTAW

Yekwon Sunwoo speaks with Zach Taylor at Bryan Broadcasting in College Station, Texas ahead of his performance with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra this weekend, October 22, playing Rachmaninoff's third concerto. See more of Yekwon's schedule here.

TimeOut Beijing: The best of Beijing Music Festival 2017

TimeOut Beijing

Beijing's premier music festival turns 20 this year.

The very definition of a Beijing institution, this year the Beijing Music Festival (BMF) celebrates two decades and counting. Beijingers have grown accustomed to top music talent trolling through the city, but it was the BMF that first catapulted China onto the world stage. This year, the creative programming continues apace with an evening of Welsh music, a celebration of Chinese contemporary composers, Beijing’s first Beethoven symphonic cycle, a 12-hour musical marathon and opera events ranging from a single cast member to full-stage Wagner. With opening and closing concerts featuring Frank Peter and Serge Zimmerman (pictured top right), and Maxim Vengerov respectively, Beijing is where you want to be this month.

Orchestral marathon

Wear comfy clothes, bring energy bars and settle in for a long but exhilarating day – even buying one half-day ticket gets you into five concerts. The marathon’s part one (10am-3pm) is a collection of lighter global favourites, such as the always popular Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No 5, Elgar’s Liebesgruss, Bizet’s Carmen Prelude, Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, Lu and Mao’s Dance of the Yao People, Hua and Wu’s The Moon Over a Fountain, Wang Xilin’s (known as China’s Shostakovich) triumphant Torch Festival, and the like. Part two (5pm-10pm) takes on some weight in the form of composer, conductor and China favourite Krzysztof Penderecki’s Chinese Songs, featuring baritone Yuan Chenye (the 'B' cast for Placido Domingo’s 'A' when in China). We’ll also see China’s cello luminary Wang Jian playing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, and He Ziyu perform the rarely-heard Glazunov’s Violin Concerto in A minor. Other pieces include Stravinsky’s The Firebird (1919 Version) and Smetana’s Die Moldau. Something for everyone – especially those with stamina.

BMF opera

For a while, the BMF was Beijing’s only opera game in town, and even today its programming stands out. This year offers three vastly different performances, from the minimalist to the complex, from the mundane to the fantastic. Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine (Thu 19-Sat 21) (the human voice) is a heart-wrenching and deeply personal look at a solitary woman whose former boyfriend is getting married the following day. In the days before drunk texting, an ill-advised phone call was a spurned lover’s only option, and this lonely soprano makes that final call. (Although most versions are sung in monologue, this one incorporates a dancer for mood – a risky call, since this story stands on its own). Continuing its experiments with digital opera, the BMF also presents the Immersive Opera Vixen (Mon 9-Wed 11). This is a 360-degree take on Leos Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen, his unusual work drawn from a serialised novel that traces the lifecycles of a wily fox, her animal counterparts, and some hapless humans. In this case, the vixen (Rosie Lomas) is a street urchin, and the live singers mix with pre-recorded music audiences hear on headphones as they immerse themselves by promenading through various rooms. As for Wagner, we’re immersed whether we like it or not. This year, BMF delivers part two of the famous (or infamous, in terms of length) Ring Cycle. Die Walkure (Tue 24, Fri 27) continues where Das Rheingold left off, and sees the warrior Siegmund falling in love with his estranged sister Sieglinde – the result is Siegfried, which takes us to part three. Another time. This is a co-production with Salzburg Easter Festival and makes its Asian premiere at the BMF. If you see one Ring Cycle work, see the one with the Ride of Valkyries, and channel your inner helicopter.

Beethoven cycle

Speaking of massive works, the BMF hosts Paavo Jarvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in the city’s first Beethoven symphonic cycle. Beethoven’s symphonies literally changed music forever; they were so intimidating to his contemporaries – not to mention his musical descendants –that the number nine became a curse. Now you can see why, in four easy concerts. Eroica (Sun 22) takes on the first, second and third symphonies; Destiny (Mon 23) covers the fourth and the fifth, Pastoral (Wed 25) is for numbers six and seven, and Choral (Thu 26) concludes brilliantly with symphonies eight and nine.

Traditional meets contemporary

These back-to-back concerts combine BMF’s love of folk music with its championing of modern composers. Thriving Artistry of Contemporary China (Mon 16) features Zhang Qianyi’s Yunnan Capriccio Orchestral Suite, Guo Wenjing’s Lotus (Lianhua) Overture for Symphony Orchestra and Zhou Long’s Beijing Rhyme: Symphonic Suite For Orchestra. Zhou and Guo were part of the now legendary 'first class' of Central Conservatory of Music composition students after the schools were reopened in 1977, a group that also included Tan Dun, Ye Xiaogang and Chen Yi. But if the contemporary proves to be too much, relax with some trad music in Walking Around The World (Tue 17). Breathing fire into earthy tradition is the Welsh group Calan, which includes the multi-talented Bethan Williams-Jones, a singer-dancer-pianist- accordion player, as well as harpist Alice French, guitarist Sam Humphreys and fiddlers Patrick Rimes and Angharad Jenkins. Expect to tap your toes.

Strings: Cellist Julian Schwarz on the Whimsical Passion of Lalo’s Concerto in D Minor

Strings
By Julian Schwarz

The Lalo Concerto in D minor for Cello and Orchestra is both a passionate rhapsody and a whimsical character piece. Though popular among students, its history tells a story of prominence on the concert stage, which I am attempting to restore as I open the Charleston Symphony’s season with it in September, as well as make my Buffalo Philharmonic debut with it in November. Édouard Lalo has been marginalized as a composer wed to Spanish influence (he was of Spanish descent), yet his idolization of Beethoven and Schumann lends a peek into his more Germanic compositional style.

At the time of the work’s composition (1876), there was, other than Schumann, Saint-Saens, and the D major Haydn, very little serious music for solo cellists to perform with orchestra. (The Rococo Variations of Tchaikovsky were premiered the same year as the Lalo, 1877.) The Lalo became a staple for cellists early on—the great maestro Pablo Casals made his debut with it in Paris in 1899. It is a serious work, meant to be performed with great pathos, depth, and richness of tone. The opening recitatives in the cello are of Beethovenian influence, and the first theme is reminiscent of the Schumann A minor Concerto. There is much opportunity for wit and playfulness in the second and third movements, with Spanish rhythms and swing, but these moments are only contrasting to the more poignant sections. The audience should be left feeling emotionally touched more than entertained.

The work is brilliantly written from a cellistic perspective, as it showcases the deepest register as well as the brightest. It is idiomatic, and fits well in the hand—most likely due to the fact that Lalo was himself both a cellist and violinist. One might notice that there is a dearth of double-stops (zero in total) throughout the piece. Lalo must have known that by adding another string of vibration, he would cut the instrument’s resonance in half. Given this deliberate absence, cellists might think twice about adding the blocked fifth at the beginning of the first theme. 

With respect to editions, edits were frequent in the early performances of the work. Therefore there is much opportunity to choose between varied virtuosic passages (or create your own!). There is a relatively new critical edition by Bärenreiter, which is quite useful to consult, along with Kalmus, and the International Edition edited by Leonard Rose. That said, the orchestral parts I use are from Kalmus, as the new Bärenreiter edition’s parts omit a few powerful orchestral contributions that are vital to the work’s intensity.

San Francisco Classical Voice: Yekwon Sunwoo Woos Audience With a Champion’s Technique and Expression

San Francisco Classical Voice
By Ken Iisaka

The Steinway Society has been presenting piano recitals for over 20 years in the South Bay. Over the years, it has engaged major piano competition winners particularly those from the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

The 2017–2018 season is no exception, with all three medalists from the most recent competition in Fort Worth. On Sunday, this year’s gold medalist, Yekwon Sunwoo of South Korea filled the McAfee Center in Saratoga.

With so many highly capable pianists churned out by conservatories around the world, winning a major competition is no guarantee of a successful career, and winners must still win the hearts of audiences after a victory. The years following a competition victory present the real competition, and the audience is the real jury.

Yekwon Sunwoo (center) with bronze medalist Daniel Hsu (left) and silver medalist Kenny Broberg (right); Photo credit: Ralph Lauer

Sunwoo made a strong case for himself with a stunning, introspective reading of the solemn Schubert Sonata in C Minor, D.958, composed months before the composer’s death. Along with two other sonatas written at the same time, the work is heavily infused with Schubert’s desperate search for peace and reconciliation. Beginning with a dramatic, rhythmically taut opening, the first movement evolved with hopeful lyricism, though darkness always beckoned. Sunwoo was particularly evocative in the prayer-like second movement, perhaps alluding to the composer transcending into the other world. The final tarantella movement unfolded cinematically, with volatile and sudden changes of colors adding life.

Sunwoo’s special quality became self-evident quickly: He possesses the uncanny ability to maintain soaring lyricism, holding counterpoint and accompaniment in an exquisite balance, laying them out clearly using well-differentiated tones and colors. Such a natural inclination turned the Rachmaninoff Sonata No. 2 in the second half of the program into something out of the ordinary. Rather than attacking the work with fistfuls of notes that could easily meld into a wall of sound, he laid out the layers buried in the score into clear compartments. While losing none of the rich, voluptuous Russian romanticism, his delivery was carefully calculated and measured with discipline. It was a refreshing perspective on an overly played, and often overly-indulgent warhorse.

Sunwoo ended the concert program with a macabre reading of Ravel’s La Valse. Rather than evoking romantic nostalgia for 19th-century Vienna, the emerging picture was grim and perhaps even grotesque at times — perhaps reminiscent of World War I — with a terrifying, rumbling roar in the opening. With his characteristic clarity and sparse, judicious use of the sustain pedal, Sunwoo again preserved the intricate details in the score, adding oft-neglected dimensions. Long crescendos came in waves, making subsequent torrents more frightening and the narrative vivid and life-like, but the performance never ran out of breath or strength.

Percy Grainger’s arrangement of “Ramble on the last Love-duet” from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier was a kaleidoscopic interlude after the intermission, with a wide gamut of colors, brought out with a deft use of the seldom-used sostenuto pedal, as demanded by Grainger. A brazen reading of Liszt’s La Campanella was a nice ribbon for a well-packaged gift to the audience.

Strings: The Majestic Sights & Musical Moments at the Grand Teton Music Festival

Strings
By James Ehnes

Writing about my experiences over the years at the Grand Teton Music Festival is a daunting prospect. How to describe the magic of a place where the physical beauty is beyond description, and where the quality of the music making defies rational explanation?

I first met maestro Donald Runnicles, music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, about a decade ago in Miami, where we performed the Walton Violin Concerto together with the New World Symphony. He invited me to perform at the Grand Teton Music Festival shortly thereafter—my first performance at the festival was of the Barber Concerto, with Steven Sloane conducting. In the years since, I’ve performed the Sibelius, Mozart’s Fourth, Brahms concerti, and the Beethoven Violin Sonata in D major, Op. 61, with Donald, as well as various chamber-music works—some with Donald at the piano.

I’ve also joined Donald and the orchestra for performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, sitting in the second-violin section—one of the highlights of my musical life. The atmosphere within the orchestra is unique; I can think of few situations that blend relaxed fun with extremely focused and committed work in such a successful combination. The well-known expression of the orchestra as a whole being greater than the sum of its parts is very apt here, and when one considers the incredible assortment of distinguished musicians that make up this orchestra, that becomes high praise indeed! A huge amount of the credit must be given to Donald. We have become very close friends over the years, so perhaps I am biased, but I think he is a musical genius, and his commitment to musical excellence is absolute. He maintains a totally friendly, relaxed, and fun attitude, while at the same time the intensity of his music making is infectious. The performances I have heard or taken part in at the Grand Teton Music Festival have been, without exception, electrifying.

Teton Village, where the festival takes place, is located right on the edge of Grand Teton National Park. I am not a skier, but from what I’m told, this is one of the greatest ski destinations in the world. In the summer, the scenery is staggering. The mountains seem to come out of nowhere; one can admire what looks like endless prairie in one direction and craggy, spectacular peaks in the other. Wildlife is everywhere; I have seen herds of bison and elk, bears, moose, and birds of all sorts. There is a relaxed, “old west” atmosphere in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the surrounding villages. People are friendly and laid-back. Many are of course part-time residents, and one gets the sense that everyone is aware of how special the area is both in terms of natural beauty and relaxed atmosphere, and everyone tries to do their part to keep it that way.

If I were to make an itinerary of “must-sees” for visitors to the festival, Jenny Lake would be a good place to start. Located only a 40-minute drive from Teton Village, the lake offers canoeing, hiking, and some of the most spectacular views in America. One of my favorite nonmusical Grand Teton Music Festival memories is an hour-long adventure on a rowboat with my wife in 2012. Before a performance a few years later, I went for a jog around the lake and was a bit alarmed to find a moose blocking my path about a half-mile from the trail exit, having a leisurely snack and seemingly (and luckily!) unaware of my presence. I was very relieved when she decided to move along!

The orchestra itself is an ensemble unlike any other. Made up of a rather unorthodox combination of instrumentalists from major orchestras both foreign and domestic, chamber musicians, and distinguished pedagogues, the players are united by their commitment to musical excellence and their love of the Grand Teton Music Festival experience. For many of my friends in the orchestra, Grand Teton Music Festival is the highlight of their season, both musically and socially. Many players come back year after year, bringing their families and sometimes even purchasing homes. Lifelong friendships are formed, and generations of “festival kids” grow up in the magical fairytale land of Teton Village. I have friends who tell me that although they spend only a few weeks at Grand Teton Music Festival each summer, Teton Village is their family’s true “home.”

This summer was a special one for me, as my parents were joining me at the festival for the first time. Runnicles’ wife, pianist Adelle Eslinger, is from my hometown of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, and though my parents have known her since she was a little girl, this was their first time seeing her in years. It was an honor to introduce them to the Jackson Hole area, Grand Teton National Park, my dear friend Donald, and the incredible and inimitable atmosphere of the Grand Teton Music Festival, one of my favorite places on earth. 

Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra Hosts Two-Day China Orchestra Administration & Management Forum

The two-day China Orchestra Administration & Management Forum was held in Guangzhou on September 25th and 26th September 2017. From Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei and Hong Kong and Macao Taiwan's nearly 30 orchestras and art institutions attended the 3rd annual forum organized by the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and YL Consulting. The China Orchestra Administration & Management Forum was launched by Maestro Yu Long in 2015 to create a platform for Chinese orchestras to explore and to discuss future development and best-practices for Chinese orchestras. Previously held in 2015 and 2016 in Shanghai, the Forum is jointly produced by the "China Art Development Program (AEP-China)" and Volkswagen Group (China).

For the first time, the Forum arranged the keynote speeches on four main topics: orchestra management, copyright issues, cooperation and positioning of concert halls / theaters and orchestras, and educational programs.

The Council of the Forum decided that the 4th China Orchestra Administration & Management Forum will be hosted by the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in 2018.

Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra Celebrates 60th Anniversary with World Premiere of Penderecki’s Symphony No. 6

In celebration of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra’s 60 th anniversary, the GSO launched its opening program of the 2017/18 season on September 24 with the world premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony No. 6 (“Chinese Poems”) featuring celebrated baritone Chen-Ye Yuan. The Polish master Penderecki, praised for decades as the Beethoven of our time, remains an eminence in contemporary music. His Symphony No. 6, co-commissioned by the GSO and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, is inspired by Chinese literary culture, with German translations of Tang Dynasty poetry.

The sold-out season-opening celebratory program at the Xinghai Concert Hall was led by GSO Music Director Maestro Long Yu and featured such frequent internationally-renowned collaborators as cellist Jian Wang, baritone Chen-Ye Yuan, pianist Haochen Zhang and violinist Gao Can. The evening also included the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra (GSYO) appearing on stage.

The September 24th concert opened with a work by one of the 20th century’s most iconic composers, Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, followed by well-loved works “Song to the Moon” (from Dvorak’s Rusalka) and Sarasate’s Ziguenerweisen, Chopin’s Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante (featuring GSYO), and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

GSO60—Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra: The Archive Recordings was released on
September 15 at the 2017 Guangzhou AV Fair. On the occasion of its 60th anniversary,
the GSO has selected 60 works from its recording archive of the past two decades,
covering such genres and styles as operas, symphonies, Chinese compositions
(including GSO commissions and premieres), concertos, song cycles, suites, overtures
and symphonic poems, spanning such diverse styles as European baroque and Chinese
contemporary. GSO60 has already been considered for the GRAMMYs in the “Best
Boxed or Special Limited-Edition Package” and “Best Orchestral Performance” categories.

About the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra (GSO)
Since its founding in 1957, the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra (GSO) has
developed into one of China’s most prestigious orchestras in its breadth of
organization and standard in performance. It is the first and only Chinese symphony
orchestra to have toured and performed on five continents. The GSO is also one of the
very first orchestras in China to institute a professional concert season. 2017/18
season marks the GSO’s 21st season.

For more information, please visit: http://www.gso.org.cn