A season to celebrate

It will also present Richard Strauss' symphonic poem An Alpine Symphony, Op 64, which musically re-creates a day of climbing in the Bavarian Alps, and will resume planning the performance and recording of 10 of Mozart's symphonies, which was shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Strauss and Mozart are demanding in terms of musical details and tones, Lyu says.

According to Ren Xiaolong, general manager of the NCPA orchestra, it will be nearly 130-strong by the end of this year, in order to be able to perform at all three venues.

Next summer, it will embark on a European tour with South Korean maestro Myung-whun Chung, its first full-scale foreign tour since the pandemic.

As the artist-in-residence at the center, pianist Zhang Haochen will perform the complete piano concertos of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, and tour nationally with the orchestra.

"I have performed many concerts at the national center, probably more often than any other concert hall in China. I also worked for a long time with the orchestra, performing a concert with it soon after its establishment," Zhang says.

In 2009, at the age of 19, he won the gold medal at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, becoming the first Chinese pianist to win the honor and one of the youngest gold medalists in the history of the competition.

"I have always believed that a concert is about building a dialogue. I like to perform pieces by different composers in the same concert. The greater the difference in style, the better. It brings a different meaning and experience to the concert and to the music," he says, adding that he will perform with the orchestra for its debut performance at the 53rd Hong Kong Arts Festival next March.

Guo Wenjing, a famous musician who is the composer-in-focus for the China NCPA Orchestra's new season, will also feature in the new season. Concerts will include his Bamboo Flute Concerto No 2, Wildfire with flutist Tang Junqiao, his Spring View, Concerto for Guzheng and Orchestra, Op 77, with guzheng (Chinese zither) player Hu Xuyuan, and he will premiere his latest work, the opera Red Sorghum, which was commissioned by the NCPA.