Closing Concert of the Beijing Modern Music Festival

2025.5.20 (Tuesday) 19:30

Closing Concert of the Beijing Modern Music Festival

2025.5.20 (Tuesday) 19:30

CCOM Opera & Concert Hall

Harbin Symphony Orchestra

Wilson Ng, Conductor

YU Le, Percussion

Program

ZHOU Xianglin               Top of Shanghai(2019)                             12’

Matthias Pintscher        Towards Osiris Study for Orchestra (2005)                   8’

ZHOU Long               Concerto for Orchestra Classic of Mountains and Seas （2019）        10’

The first movement, Beishan Jing

Xiaogang YE    Marimba Concerto Cranes Chirping from the Greater Bay Area (2024)         12’

——————Intermission——————

David Serkin Ludwig        Rogue Riverrun(2024)                                 9’

CHEN Yi                Children’s Suite for orchestra（2024）                  10’

I. Antiphony

II. Northern Tune

III. Southern Dance

GUO Wenjing          Three Dances from the ballet Dunhuang Op.60（2017）      15’

 I. Mysterious Songbird Kalaviuka

II. Flying Apsaras

III. Foreign Rotating Dance

Introduction

Harbin Symphony Orchestra

In April 1908, Orchestra of Russian TRANS-AMUR Railway Corps Brigade played 1812 Overture, written by Tchaikovsky, in Harbin, kicking off the first symphony concert in the history of China. The orchestra, which later became Chinese Eastern Railway Club Symphony Orchestra, was also the first one of its kind in China. With most musicians coming from Russia, it was the predecessor of Harbin Symphony Orchestra. In the 1920s and 1930s, it was known as the First Symphony Orchestra in the Far East and later called Original Harbin Symphony Orchestra.

Over the past five decades, Harbin Symphony Orchestra, as an attractive biz card of Harbin--the City of Music, has played concerts together with a pile of orchestras both at home and abroad, to name some of them, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov”, and Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. It has been conducted by many famous Chinese and overseas conductors, including Li Delun, Huang Feili, Zheng Xiaoying, Tang Muhai, Zubin Mehta, Anatoly Levin and Alexey Bogorad, etc. 

As the envoy of friendship engaged in cultural exchanges between China and other countries, Harbin Symphony Orchestra has played concerts in more than 10 countries and regions, e.g., Russia, Denmark, Austria, Greece, Japan and Korea, telling stories and presenting image of China by means of music. Particularly, in 2016, the concert, Voice of Friendship, jointly performed by Harbin Symphony Orchestra and Ural Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia in UN Palace of Nations, expressed the common wishes for world peace by virtue of music. 

In recent years, Harbin Symphony Orchestra has played wonderful music in Harbin Summer Music Festival, Russia-China Culture & Art Week, the Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition, and National Vocal Music Competition, etc., adding great glamour to Harbin as the City of Music. 

In 2017, the 100-year-old Harbin Symphony Orchestra made profound reforms. In an attempt to become the best symphony orchestra in China, one of the best in Asia and a famous one in the world, Harbin Symphony Orchestra has initiated the model of professional development. A couple of dozen excellent musicians, from home and abroad, were recruited to Harbin Symphony Orchestra, adding to the century-old orchestra’s vitality and vigour.

In March 2017, the world-famous conductor Tang Muhai became Art Director of Harbin Symphony Orchestra, providing greater space for future development of the orchestra. 

In 2021, Harbin Symphony Orchestra was invited to participate as guest orchestra at “ Splendid Eternity” Grand Symphonic Concert during the “ Belt and Road~ Great Wall International Folk Culture and Arts Festival ”which is hosted by Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Hebei Provincial Government. 

Now it is the best time for Harbin Symphony Orchestra to make greater progress. Supported by the audience and people from all walks of life in and out of China, Harbin Symphony Orchestra will work painstakingly to seek excellence so as to popularize symphony and improve the fame of Harbin in the world. 

Performers

Wilson Ng

Described by Tatler Asia as “one of the world’s most acclaimed young conductors,” Wilson Ng was born in Hong Kong and educated in Europe from adolescence. He holds conducting posts with the London Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and the Seoul Philharmonic, and won prizes at the Mahler, Solti, and Svetlanov competitions.

Ng has collaborated with leading ensembles including the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Qatar Philharmonic, China NCPA Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony, and Tongyeong Festival Orchestra. He has appeared alongside Viktoria Mullova, Esther Yoo, Sumi Jo, Víkingur Ólafsson, Bruce Liu, and Yunchan Lim.

In Hong Kong, Ng is a regular guest conductor with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, leading subscription concerts and Symphony Under the Stars, and has often stepped in for Music Director Jaap van Zweden to great acclaim.

Although deeply familiar with the traditional Western canon, Ng is a passionate champion of Asian composers, including Xiaogang Ye, Unsuk Chin, Toshio Hosokawa. A frequent guest at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, he conducted its opening in 2019 and 2024 and its closing in 2023. In 2025, he founded the Asian Modern Symphony Orchestra, assembling top musicians from across Asia to promote contemporary Asian music, with its inaugural tour taking place in China and Korea.

YU Le

Born in China. Le has travelled around world as a soloist, chamber musician and a educator. He has also enjoyed success in the competitions including Gold Medal at China National Percussion Competition; Winner of Italy PAS International Percussion Competition 2009 and Yamaha European Scholarship Competition 2012. He has been awarded as a Young Artist of Philanthropy in China by UNESCO in 2019. 

Le has performed in front of the British Royal Family at the 60th Royal Over-seas League Competition Award Ceremony in London’s Southbank Centre, where he has won the first prize of mixed ensemble category with his Aurora Percussion Duo, they have also won the Park Lane Group Competition at Southbank Centre. The duo has been chosen by “Live Music Now” to deliver exciting projects to special educational needs across the UK. The Duo been invited to play at some of the best venues and festivals including Edinburgh International Festival, BBC In Tune, Cambridge Music Festival, Bridgewater Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, RNCM Day of Percussion and beyond. 

Currently Le serves as Professor, Doctoral Programme Supervisor and Acting Head of Strings, Wind, Brass and Percussion also the Founding Director of Percussion at the School of Music, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and the Professor of Marimba at the Royal Northern College of Music in UK, where he was the Deputy Director of Percussion from 2019 until 2022. he was also the Marimba/Solo Percussion tutor at Chetham's School of Music from 2018-2022, he’s pupil Fang Zhang has won the BBC Young Music of Year 2020. he also holds Visiting Professorship at the Xi'an, Wuhan and Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China. Le was the first percussionist has been awarded an Associate Member of the Royal Northern College of Music in 2020.

Composers

According to the repertoire order

ZHOU Xianglin

Composer, professor, doctoral supervisor, currently serving as the Deputy Director of the Academic Committee, Director of the Creative Committee, and Director of the Composition Conducting Department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He also concurrently holds the positions of Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Music Association and Director of the Music Composition Work Committee, Director of the Composition and Composition Theory Society of the China Music Association, and Vice President of the Creative Committee of the Chinese National Orchestra Association.

He has been awarded a number of prizes, including the second prize for orchestral works in the 18th National Music Works (Folk Music Evaluation), the third prize for large-scale works in the 13th National Music Works (Symphony Evaluation), the Excellent Play Award at the China Opera Festival, and Excellent Works Award at the National Excellent Symphony Music Works Exhibition. His works have been selected for the National Art Fund, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Times Symphony Composition Program, the Development and Inheritance Project of Chinese National Opera, the Praise for the New Era - Original Excellent Symphony Music Works Exhibition, and the Shanghai Major Literary Art Creation Projects, and have been widely disseminated and promoted in various media at home and abroad.

Matthias Pintscher

Matthias Pintscher is the newly appointed Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony (KCS), effective from the 2024-25 season. He launched his tenure with the KCS with a highly successful tour to Europe in August, with concerts at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. 

The 2024-25 season will see Pintscher in his fifth year as Creative Partner at the Cincinnati Symphony. As guest conductor, he returns to the New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Oslo Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orchestre National de Radio France, and the Boulez Ensemble.

Pintscher has conducted several opera productions, including with the Staatsoper Berlin (Wagner’s Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman, and Beat Furrer’s Violetter Schnee last season) and the Wiener Staatsoper (Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando). 

Matthias Pintscher is published exclusively by Bärenreiter, and recordings of his works can be found on Kairos, EMI, Teldec, Wergo, and Winter & Winter.

ZHOU Long

ZHOU Long was the first Chinese American composer to win a Pulitzer Prize in Music for his first opera Madame White Snake. Born on July 8, 1953, in Beijing, Mr. Zhou graduated from the Central Conservatory in 1983. He was composer-in-residence with the China Broadcasting Symphony. In 1985, he attended Columbia University in New York, where he received a Doctorate in 1993. Dr. ZHOU is currently Bonfils Distinguished Professor of Composition at University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory.

Dr. ZHOU also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the Elise Stoeger Prize from Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and Barlow Prize. He has received commissioning awards from the Koussevitzky, Fromm Music foundations; Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Fellowships are from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, and the New York State Council on the Arts. ZHOU’s music of all genres have been widely performed and recorded, and published by the Oxford University Press, Presser-Carl Fischer and the Shanghai Music Publishing House.

Xiaogang YE 

Xiaogang YE is a music educator, professor of composition, and doctoral tutor at the Central Conservatory of Music. And YE is the founding dean of School of Music, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen since May 2021. He has been a member of the Committee of the 10th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and a member of the Standing Committee of the 11th, 12th and 13th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He is currently vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, chairman of the China Musicians Association, an international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, international chair in composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, distinguished professor of the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou and Shanghai Conservatory of Music, honorary professor of the Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music, and a consultant to the Tianjin Juilliard School. YE is the founder and artistic director of the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Shenzhen Belt & Road International Music Festival, Tsingtao International Music Festival, Guangdong-Hongkong-Macau Greater Bay Area Music Season, and International Music Competition Harbin. He is one of the members of Talents Project selected by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, and an expert who enjoys a special allowance of the State Council. YE is a representative figure of contemporary Chinese music and one of the most well-known composers in the country.

David Serkin Ludwig

David Serkin Ludwig’s first memory was singing Beatles songs with his sister; his second was hearing his grandfather perform at Carnegie Hall; foreshadowing a diverse career collaborating with many of today’s leading musicians, filmmakers, and writers. His choral work “The New Colossus,” opened the private prayer service for President Obama’s second inauguration. The next year NPR Music named him in the world’s “Top 100 Composers Under Forty.” He holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad.

Ludwig has received commissions and notable performances from many of the most recognized artists and ensembles of our time, including the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and National Symphony Orchestras, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Dresden Music Festival, as well as Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Jennifer Koh, Jaime Laredo, David Shifrin, eighth blackbird, the Dover and Borromeo Quartets, Imani Winds, and the PRISM Saxophone Quartet.

In 2023, Ludwig was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters as recipient of their annual award in music. In 2022, Ludwig was awarded the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the largest of its kind for chamber music. He received the prestigious 2018 Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage Fellowship, as well as the First Music Award, and is a two-time recipient of the Independence Foundation Fellowship, a Theodore Presser Foundation Career Grant, and awards from New Music USA, the American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Detroit Chamber Winds, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

CHEN Yi

Born in China, Ms. CHEN has received bachelor's and master's degrees from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in the City of New York. Her composition teachers included Prof. WU Zu-qiang,Prof. Chou Wen-chung,and Prof. Mario Davidovsky. She has served as Composer-in- Residence for the Women's Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and Aptos Creative Arts Center (93-96) supported by Meet The Composer, and on the composition faculty at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University (96-98).

Her music is published by Theodore Presser Company, performed worldwide, by such musicians and ensembles as Yehudi Menuhin, Yo-Yo Ma, EvelynGlennie,Chanticleer,Cleveland/Halle/SaxonStateOrchestras,BBC/Royal Philharmonics, BMOP, The Women's Philharmonic,Seattle/Pacific/Singapore/ChinaNational/San Francisco/ Chicago/New Zealand/BBCSymphonies,LA/NY/China Philharmonics,Stuttgart/St.Paul/St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestras, Rascher/Prism Saxophone Quartets, Music From China, and Shanghai/Ying Quartets; and recorded in over150 CDs, on such labels as Bis (02,03,04,11), New Albion (97), CRI (99), Teldec (97,99 w/ Grammy Award for Colors of Love,03,08), New World (08, 09 w/ NPR Top10Classical Music Album Award for Sound of the Five), Albany (04,05,06,09,11,12,14,15,19,22), Naxos (07,08,09,12,15,22), Bridge (09,14,18), and others on Delos, Angel, Nimbus, Cala, Avant, Atma,Hugo, Koch International Classics,Centaur, Eroica, Capstone, Quartz, Innova, DECCA,Navona, Etcetera, XAS,and China Record Co. since 1986.

GUO Wenjing

GUO Wenjing is currently a professor at the Composition Department of Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. He has created a variety of works including 5 operas, 2 ballets, music for 3 new Beijing operas, 10 concertos, 5 symphonies, 3 choral symphonies, 3 symphonic poems, 2 symphonic overtures, 3 suites, 4 grand works for traditional Chinese instruments, 3 string quartets, and over 20 works for chamber music and a cappella.  He has also scored for more than 40 feature films and TV series, including Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles directed by ZHANG Yimou. He also is the composer who composed the unique Characters for 2008 Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony.   

Program Notes

ZHOU Xianglin               

Top of Shanghai(2019)                                 

Through the description of the "urban skyline" soaring into the sky, the composition tries to show the open, innovative and inclusive urban character of Shanghai, and render the bright light of the city's open mind and embracing the future.

Matthias Pintscher        

Towards Osiris Study for Orchestra (2005)

Osiris, the God of Fertility, was the son of Nut (the Goddess of the Sky) and Geb (the God of the Earth); the destiny that led to his death stood at the center of my investigations. After being murdered by his brother, Osiris remained in the Realm of the Dead, where he served as a judge in the afterlife. In Egyptian mythology, every person’s death is closely bound up with the destiny of Osiris. I was especially touched by the figure of Isis, Osiris’ loving sister and spouse, who, after her husband was dismembered by his raging brother (Set, the God of Combat), was able to reassemble him through the power of her love, and prevented further decay of his reconstructed body, resuscitating him with her wings. Prior to that, she had searched desperately and ceaselessly along the banks of the Nile for the remains of her beloved. This suggested to me a formal structure based upon various stages of fragmentation and reanimation: the initial state of completeness, the decomposition into separate pieces, and their reassembly and metamorphosis—a genuine musical process.

Towards Osiris was premiered by Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker in March 2006. 

ZHOU Long   

Concerto for Orchestra Classic of Mountains and Seas , The first movement, Beishan Jing（2019）

Commissioned by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. First Performed at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall on June 22, 2019.

"Shan Hai Jing" is like a history book, which contains many mythological stories depicting thousands of mountains and waters, geography and humanities. This work is not based on the story of the ancient gods, but based on the geographical distribution of the "Fivering Mountains", metaphorical waters, mountains range, folk customs, and rituals of the gods, depicting the north, west, east, south, and middle respectively in five movements. The characteristics of the "mountain system" and the regional customs. 

The first movement, Beishan Jing (Largo). In this movement, folk music elements such as the traditional Mongolian “Humai” and the traditional Tibetan “Bon’e’ri” are used to Ode the folk customs and heroism of the vast mountains and plains and different ethnic groups. 

Xiaogang YE         

Marimba Concerto Cranes Chirping from the Greater Bay Area (2024)      

Cranes Chirping was commissioned and premiered in September 2024 for the Shenzhen Belt and Road International Music Season.  The work shows the composer’s fondness of the marimba, an instrument that he used in almost all of his symphonic works.  In Cranes Chirping, the composer takes a melody unique to the Lingnan region of China and personalises it, giving the work a spirited and playful energy.  The crane is a very auspicious animal in the Chinese cultural tradition, and most ancient Chinese cultures have favoured diverse depictions of the crane, especially in art works.  Cranes Chirping most likely is the first time in the history of Chinese music that music is used to depict the beauty of an elegant flock of cranes dancing on the shores of the vast, praised sea in southern China.

David Serkin Ludwig        

Rogue Riverrun（2024）                                       

Rogue Riverrun is my tribute to the majestic river that runs through the Rogue Valley in the Pacific Northwest.

The piece opens with the sounds of water sprays, and percussionists are placed on either side of the stage, as if we listeners are hearing the mouth of the river from a raft, canoe, or kayak. I imagine being carried over rapids and through placid streams into gently rocking moonlit water, finishing in the grandeur and awesome power of its natural beauty.

There’s a reference in the title to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, a modern epic that has inspired other composers before me. The opening words of the text are: “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay.” The timelessness of a river running past the Garden of Eden evokes the eternal connection to nature that I feel when I visit this part of the world. The form of Joyce’s story, where the last sentence completes the first, is mirrored in the structure of my piece, where the end is the beginning and the beginning the end (as if you could start it again immediately after the last bar…) The river represents the power of our shared humanity as we cycle on.

CHEN Yi                

Children’s Suite for orchestra（2024）                  

Co-Commissioned by the Kayden Music Commissioning Program at Juilliard Pre-College and Interlochen Center for the Arts in 2024, my Children’s Suite for full orchestra has three movements: 1. Antiphony; 2. Northern Tune; 3. Southern Dance. The duration is about 9 minutes. 

The music in the first movement Antiphony is inspired by a Chinese children’s folk song Guessing oriented in Yunnan province, in which a dialogue with question and answer is in a humorous mood. The simple and sunny opening is given by a solo trumpet and the brass section, which brings out the following variations presented by all different sections in the orchestra, woodwinds, strings, and percussion respectively, and culminated by a celebrative tutti at the end. 

In Chinese traditional theatre, there are standard forms and structures in music, which have principles with proportional rhythmic variation patterns. Inspired by the variation method, my movement is from slow to fast (Andante-Moderation-Presto), with meter changes (from 4/4/beat, ¾ beat to 2/4 beat). The music starts lyrically with sweet melodic lines woven in layers, continues lively with staccato notes, and ends energetically with marcato notes articulated. The pitch material of the second movement Northern Tune is drawn from folk music in northern China, which is introduced in the beginning and concluded with a strong bold line in union. The 2nd movement features the string section in the orchestra. 

The third movement Southern Dance is inspired by the village Bamboo Dance in southern China. The aged old folk dance is for ritual ceremony and harvest celebration in the history, in which there are pairs of people holding the ends of the long bamboo rods and clapping them loudly in stable pulse, for groups of dancers to dance between the bamboo shapes on the floor, in musical rhythms and ensemble patterns. The pitch material of the piece (a descending seventh) is drawn from a folksong of Li People in Hainan Island where the Bamboo Dance is popular. The music reflects the vivid image of the scene in which people dancing with hand over hand crossings. The articulations and dynamic switches on the notes are important in this movement. The high spirit holds up an exciting finale of the whole suite.

GUO Wenjing          

Three Dances from the ballet Dunhuang Op.60（2017）      

I. Mysterious Songbird Kalaviuka：Kalaviuka, at No.148,172 and 237 Grottos, is a bird that inhabits snow-capped mountains or the Pure Land, a half-human half-bird image often referred to in Buddhist scriptures and often found in Buddhist art. It is said that the voice of Kalaviuka is the most wonderful voice in the world just like the voice of the Buddha. 

II.  Flying Apsaras: Flying Apsaras are images that are most often found in Mo Kao Grotto, and this piece of music depicts all kinds of images of male and female Flying. Apsaras of different sizes.

III. Foreign Rotating Dance: Many frescos have described this dance, and one of the most famous is in No.220 Grotto.