Maestro Yu Long and the SSO have released a new album on the Deutsche Grammophon label to mark the 140th anniversary of the country's oldest orchestra, Zhang Kun reports in Shanghai.

The first Deutsche Grammophon recording by the Chinese conductor Yu Long and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra enjoyed its worldwide release on June 28.

The album, Gateways, is the first in a series of three recordings agreed under an exclusive contract between Deutsche Grammophon, the world's oldest and most renowned classical music label, and maestro Yu and the SSO.

Featuring works by Chinese and Russian composers, the new release celebrates the 140th anniversary of the SSO, the oldest orchestra in China.

DG will release two more albums with maestro Yu and the SSO over the coming two years, according to the deal signed last year. The programs will also feature Chinese compositions and Western classical pieces.

The album cover for Gateways features a picture of Yu leaning on a bicycle on the Bund in Shanghai. "The bicycle is a vehicle for communications: communications between East and West, Shanghai's past and present," says the 54-year-old conductor, who is also the orchestra's music director. "When I grew up in Shanghai, bikes were the primary vehicle for transportation, and that's also the sense of what we want to achieve through music."

One of the most powerful figures in China's classical music scene, Yu is artistic director for three orchestras in China: the China Philharmonic, the SSO and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. In 2018, Yu became the first Chinese conductor to sign a contract with DG. As part of Deutsche Grammophon's 120th anniversary celebrations last year, maestro Yu conducted a gala concert performed by the SSO at the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the Forbidden City on Oct 10.

Joining big name conductors such as Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein, being a member of the DG label has allowed Yu to become an "exporter of the sound of China", says Shanghai-based cultural critic Zhu Guang.

"Maestro Yu has built up a wide network of friends in the global music industry. His collaboration with the SSO will bring the sound of China to the West," Zhu says.

"The program list was designed jointly between the SSO and DG because the music label maintains extremely high artistic standards," Yu says, talking about the track selection for Gateways. "We have made great efforts in promoting Chinese compositions around the world."

He has personally been involved in the commissioning of a series of Chinese musicians' work, such as Chen Qigang's violin concerto La Joie de la Souffrance (The Joy of Suffering), which is also featured on the new album, and Zhou Long's Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Madame White Snake.

La Joie de la Souffrance was also chosen as a mandatory piece at the second Isaac Stern International Violin Competition, following The Butterfly Lovers in the first installment in 2016.

"It was an effective and important channel to encourage violinists from all over the world to study and understand Chinese music," Yu says. The album also includes another composition by Chen, named Wu Xing (The Five Elements), Kreisler's Tambourin Chinois, featuring star violinist Maxim Vengerov, and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.

The choice of Russian composition was made because Chinese classical music owes a lot to Russia. As early as the 1920s, a large number of Russian musicians came to Shanghai, Yu says. They played an important role in introducing Western classical music to China and nurturing the country's first generation of Western-music talent. For example, Chinese composer He Luting, who later became head of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, made his mark by winning a contest in 1934 for his composition Buffalo Boy's Flute. It was the first piano contest in China, and was sponsored and judged by Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin, Yu explains.

Looking back at the 140 years' history of the SSO, Yu says: "In the first 70 years, the orchestra was primarily run by expatriates in Shanghai, and in the second, it developed in the hands of Chinese direction."

The Shanghai Public Band, the predecessor to the SSO, was established in 1879 when French flutist Jean Remusat was the conductor, who was later succeeded by German conductor Rudolf Buck. In 1919, Italian pianist Mario Paci took over and in the 23 years that followed, he led the orchestra to become the "greatest orchestra in the Far East".

The SSO closed its 2018-19 music season with a concert at its home venue, the Shanghai Symphony Hall, on June 29. The orchestra will embark on a global tour in August to celebrate its 140th anniversary, which will see the SSO perform at the renowned Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, Washington and Chicago in the United States, Edinburgh in Scotland, Grafenegg in Austria and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The tour will conclude with a performance at the BBC Proms in London, the United Kingdom.