Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is the earliest and the best-known ensemble of its kind in Asia, through which Chinese symphonic music has developed. Formed in 1879 as the Shanghai Public Band, it developed into an orchestra in 1907, and was renamed the Shanghai Municipal Council Symphony Orchestra in 1922. Notably under the baton of the Italian conductor Mario Paci, the orchestra promoted Western music and trained young Chinese talents in this style. It introduced the first Chinese orchestral work to Asian audiences and has been reputed as the “the best in the Far East.” Practically speaking, the history of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra may also be referred to as the history of China’s symphonic music development.

The Shanghai Symphony is now embracing a new era of its history, which spans three centuries. It has held over ten thousand concerts – giving premiere performances of several thousand musical works – and has collaborated with many guest artists (conductors, soloists and vocalists) of world renown, gaining a reputation as the most authoritative interpreter of Chinese symphonic compositions, while promoting them with every possible endeavor. It has become more and more influential both at home and abroad, having most recently completed the audio & video recordings of Zhu Jian’er’s Symphonies, Tan Dun’s multimedia concerto The Map, and music for the Oscar and Grammy Award-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, among other projects.

Since the 1970s, it has toured extensively abroad: In 1990, the orchestra made its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York; in 2003 it performed in 11 cities in the US; while in 2004, it toured Europe to celebrate the Sino-French Cultural Year. Its 125th Anniversary Celebration Concert given at the Berliner Philharmonie (the first Chinese symphony orchestra to play in this hall), was hailed as a great success. Maestro Long Yu is currently Music Director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

As one of the most distinguished Chinese conductors with an established international reputation, Maestro Long Yu is currently Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, President of the Beijing Music Festival Artistic Committee and President of the Artistic Committee of the Shanghai Oriental Center.

Besides his concerts throughout the year with the China Philharmonic and the Guangzhou Symphony, Long Yu has appeared with the world’s major orchestras and opera companies, including the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, the Hamburg State Opera, the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig, the Budapest Radio Symphony Orchestra, Le Theatre de Nice, the Ireland National Philharmonic Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

Long Yu was born in Shanghai in 1964 into a family of musicians. He received his early music education from his grandfather Ding Shande, a celebrated composer and an educator of high prestige. This prepared him for the rigorous formal music education he subsequently received first at the Shanghai Music Conservatory and then at the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. In 1992, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Central Opera Theatre in Beijing. In the same year, he was involved in organizing the inaugural Beijing New Year’s Concert, now an annual event, and served as its conductor for three successive years. In 1998, he founded the Beijing Music Festival held the position of Artistic Director and has been President of the Beijing Music Festival Arts Foundation from 2005. Under his leadership the Beijing Music Festival has become one of the internationally acclaimed festivals. Along with numerous performances by world-renowned ensembles and artists, the festival has been commissioning new music from composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Philip Glass and Guo Wenjing. In 2000, Long Yu co-founded the China Philharmonic Orchestra and was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. Now entering his 7th season with the CPO, he has maintained the high standard of orchestral performance and artistic administration. In 2003, Long Yu was appointed the Music Director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. He has toured extensively with the China Philharmonic and the Guangzhou Symphony. From February to April 2005, the China Philharmonic Orchestra took an international tour under the baton of Maestro Long Yu. Within 40 days they appeared in 22 cities throughout North America and Europe. This is the first time a symphony orchestra gave performances in the two continents in China’s history, a tour de force even among orchestras all over the world.

Mr. Long Yu’s recordings include, on Deutsche Grammophon with the China Philharmonic, Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor (orch. Arnold Schoenberg) and Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture, highlights of Chinese symphonic music and Yellow River Concerto with Lang Lang. Recordings on Naxos include Korngold’s Violin Concerto and Ding Shande’s Long March Symphony.

Long Yu received the 2002 Montblanc Arts Patronage Award from the Montblanc Cultural Foundation, and in 2003 came Le grade de chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Honor of Chevalier of French Art and Culture) from the Government of France. In 2005, Italian President honored Maestro Long Yu L’onorificenza di commendatore.

Yuja Wang, Piano

Twenty-two year old Chinese pianist Yuja Wang is widely recognized for playing that combines the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist. Regularly lauded for her controlled, prodigious technique, Yuja’s command of the piano has been described as “astounding” and “superhuman,” and she has been praised for her authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire, the depth of her musical insight, as well as her fresh interpretations and graceful, charismatic stage presence. This past season The Washington Post called her Kennedy Center recital debut “jaw-dropping” and following her San Francisco recital debut The San Francisco Chronicle wrote “The arrival of Chinese-born pianist Yuja Wang on the musical scene is an exhilarating and unnerving development. To listen to her in action is to re-examine whatever assumptions you may have had about how well the piano can actually be played.”

In the few short years since her 2005 debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra led by Pinchas Zukerman, for which the Canadian press reported “a star is born,” Yuja has already performed with many of the world’s prestigious orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Houston Symphony, New World Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony, in the U.S., and abroad with the Tonhalle Orchestra, China Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic and the NHK Symphony in Tokyo. In 2006 Yuja made her New York Philharmonic debut at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and performed with the orchestra the following season under Lorin Maazel during the Philharmonic’s Japan/Korea visit. That same season she performed in Leeds, U.K, and toured the Netherlands with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic led by Yuri Temirkanov, and most recently, in the spring of 2008, she toured the United States with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields led by Sir Neville Marriner. She has also given recitals in major cities throughout North America and abroad, is a dedicated performer of chamber music, and makes regular appearances at festivals including the Aspen Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Gilmore Festival, the Schleswig Holstein Festival and the Verbier Festival, where her recent recital performances were met with praise. She has worked with many of the world’s esteemed conductors including Charles Dutoit, Robert Spano, Michael Stern, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, and Pinchas Zuckerman.

As a young emerging pianist, each season Yuja makes a number of important debuts, both with major orchestras and in recital. This season she will give her first performances with four U.S orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony, all led by Charles Dutoit, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra led by Arild Remmereit. Abroad, Yuja will make her debut with the London Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Tilson-Thomas and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra led by Claudio Abbado. She will also make her recital debut at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Additional highlights of the 2008-09 season include reengagements with the San Francisco and New World Symphonies led by Michael Tilson Thomas, the Houston Symphony led by Alexander Mickelthwate, and the Detroit Symphony led by Charles Dutoit, as well as performances with the NHK Symphony in Japan, Tonhalle Orchestra in Switzerland, both led by Mr. Dutoit. She will give recitals in Washington DC, Seattle, Paris, Prague and Munich, among other cities worldwide. In the summer of 2009, Yuja will return to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Verbier Festival and perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Charles Dutoit at the Vail Valley Music Festival.

Yuja is an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon. For her debut recording, titled Sonatas & Etudes, to be released in the U.S. in the spring of 2009, she presents a program of sonatas including Chopin’s “Funeral March”, Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, and Scriabin’s Sonata no. 2, and etudes by Ligeti.

Born in Beijing in 1987, Yuja began studying piano at age six, with her earliest public performances taking place in China, Australia and Germany, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under Ling Yuan and Zhou Guangren. Following three years, from 1999 to 2001, at the Morningside Music summer program at Calgary’s Mount Royal College, an artistic and cultural exchange program between Canada and China, Yuja moved to Canada and began studying with Hung Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone at the Mount Royal College Conservatory. In 2002, when Yuja was 15, she won Aspen Music Festival’s concerto competition and moved to the U.S. to study with Gary Graffman at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she graduated in 2008. In 2006 Yuja received the Gilmore Young Artist Award.