With three venues in Beijing, the China NCPA Orchestra ushers in its 15th year with a bumper crop of concerts, Chen Nan reports.

Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, the China NCPA Orchestra, the resident symphony orchestra of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, announced its full program for the 2024-25 season on Sept 3. In all, 106 performances, including 11 operas, 39 concerts and five chamber music concerts, are on the roster.

Conducted by Germany's Markus Stenz, the orchestra opened its new season with two concerts on Sept 7 and 8, with programs including Beethoven's Symphony No 5 in C Minor, Op 67 and the Chinese premiere of German composer Detlev Glanert's Frenesia. Hong Kongborn pianist Chiyan Wong also performed.

"This new season is exciting because the NCPA has three venues in the capital, which allow more people to enjoy classical music," says Lyu Jia, the orchestra's music director and the national center's artistic director of music.

The new season has been defined under the theme of "the Created Universe", which is inspired by the classical philosophical text, the Dao De Jing, or the Tao Te Ching, the foundation of Taoism.

"We love the idea of Taoism — everything should comply with its natural attributes and be in harmony with the universe," Lyu says. "It's just like the birth and growth of the symphony orchestra. We have let it develop naturally and become who we are today."

One of the highlights of the new season will be the orchestra's journey with Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, which started more than three years ago and will conclude this month. To mark the bicentenary of his birth, the NCPA orchestra will release a recording of his complete works.

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.

"The most exciting part of our seasons is always the premiering of new pieces," says Tang Ning, head of program operations. This year, these will include three commissioned pieces: Sentiments: Autumn Reflections by Yao Chen, The Story of Hua'er, a symphonic tale by Zhao Jiping, and Tipping Point, a piece with an environmental theme by Huang Ruo.

Additionally, a special session, A Life's Walk on Thin Ice, will be held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich's death. Conductors, including Jaap van Zweden from the Netherlands, Lawrence Foster from the United States, and Zhang Xian, will take part, leading the orchestra and soloists like violinist Ning Feng, German cellist Jan Vogler and US pianist-composer Conrad Tao, in interpreting some of the Russian composer's symphonies and concertos.

Pianist Lang Lang, who is an old friend of the center, will return next May with the "Lang Lang Music Week". He and the orchestra will perform music by French composers Saint-Saens, Ravel and Debussy, and also hold master classes.

The orchestra, the NCPA Resident Singers, and international opera stars, premiered The Rhinegold on Aug 30, the monumental prologue of Wagner's epic four-opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. This season, The Valkyrie and Siegfried, the two middle operas of the cycle, will premiere. Chinese operas, including The Peony Pavilion by Ye Xiaogang and The Long March by Yin Qing, will also be performed.