On the evening of April 7th, the China NCPA Orchestra presented music lovers the first concert of its 2018/19 season themed, “Forever Young”. Musicians will continue to release their own passion, creativity and vigour under the leadership of LÜ Jia, Artistic Director of NCPA and Music Director of China NCPA Orchestra.

The China NCPA Orchestra will perform its well-planned repertoire to present youthful days in the music world under a spotlight, to salute the spirit of youth contained in its gene, the Chinese art life blossoming with strong youthful vigour in a new era and the Chinese nation’s reform and opening-up, which has lasted forty years.

The orchestra will show audiences how plenty of classical works of all time eulogize youth and sigh at lapse of time, and focus on the works composed by great composer in their early days. In the repertoire you not only can listen to Mozart’s Violin Concerto composed at the age of 17 or 18, and Beethoven’s No. 2 Symphony composed at the age of 32, but also Rachmaninoff’s and Mahler’s No. 1 Symphony composed at 22 and 28 respectively, Britten’s Simple Symphonycomposed at 21 and Stravinsky’s The Firebird composed at 27. The audience can hear the colour of youth and great musicians’ mixed feelings for youth in those works.

In honour of the 190th anniversary of Schubert’s death and 100th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth, the China NCPA Orchestra will give concerts themed, “Perfect Schubert” and “Century-old Bernstein.” At the “Perfect Schubert” series, the orchestra will perform all eight symphonies by this outstanding Austrian representative of Romanticism in its early days under Artistic Director LÜ Jia’s baton. At the “Century-old Bernstein” series, the orchestra will first perform three meditations from Bernstein’s Mass, the symphonic dances from classic musical West Side Story, Symphony No. 2 - “The Age of Anxiety”, Overture to Candide, Serenade composed based on Plato’s Symposium, and works of other many styles to reveal Bernstein’s feelings and philosophic thoughts hidden in his music compositions.

The China NCPA Orchestra will perform all Mozart’s violin concertos with Rainer Honeck, LU Siqing, Clara Jumi Kang, Leticia Moreno, NING Feng and YANG Tianwa one after another, and show audiences a wonderful dialogue with bowstrings by playing violin concertos by Chinese and foreign composers including Haydn, Beethoven, Khachaturian, Shostakovich, ZHAO Jiping and CHEN Qigang.

This season, the China NCPA Orchestra will continue a tradition by performing “Chinese-style symphonies”. Also audiences will be shown the elegant demeanour of Chinese musicians by guest conductors, soloists and singers such as ZHANG Xian, CHEN Lin, Shao-Chia Lü, Li-Wei Qin, HsinYun-Huang, NING Feng, SUN Yingdi, YUAN Fang, YANG Tianwa, SHEN Yang, Z·Xavier, ZHANG Qiang and MENG Meng. At NCPA’s invitation, famous Chinese composers ZHAO Jiping, YIN Qing, ZHANG Qianyi, ZANG Yunfei and HAO Weiya have composed five original songs to sing of “The New Era and New Beijing”; moreover, playwright ZOU Jingzhi, and composers MENG Weidong and TANG Jianping have composed Ode To The Central Axis, a symphonic chorus themed, 40th anniversary of the beginning of the reform and opening-up and “One City & Three Belts”, commissioned by NCPA. The new works will be premiered at "Chinese-style Symphonies: Concert of NCPA’ New Works" on October 11th.

Additionally, the orchestra will perform 13 operas much-loved by audiences, including Chinese epic opera commission of NCPA The Long March, red classic national opera Jinsha River, opera commissions FANG Zhimin and LAN Huahua, as well as world classics Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Romeo and Juliet, La Sonnambula, Don Juan and Aida.

The NCPA invites violinist LU Siqing and conductor and percussionist LI Biao to be resident artists in its 2018/19 season. Siqing will hold three concerts with the orchestra for a performance of ZHAO Jiping’s No. 1 Violin Concerto, Bernstein’s Serenade and Shostakovich’s No. 1 Violin Concerto, and be present in educational programmes and public rehearsal activities to have face-to-face communications with audiences. LI Biao will hold two concerts with the orchestra to perform Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion Ensemble and Orchestra as a percussionist, conduct the performance of Beethoven’s No. 5 Piano Sonata - “Emperor” and Brahms’ No. 2 Symphony , give audiences a master class on percussion music” and take part in a public rehearsal.

Meanwhile, maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy and chief conductor of Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Rainer Honeck, who were present in the season six years ago, will return; Daniele Gatti, chief conductor of Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, David Robertson, chief conductor of Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård, chief conductor of BBC National Orchestra of Wales, will cooperate with China NCPA Orchestra for the first time. LÜ and ZHANG enjoy good rapport with the orchestra in terms of art conception and cooperation. In addition, CHEN Lin and YUAN Ding will appear with two repertoires different in style. Leticia Moreno, Truls Mørk and Clara Jumi Kang, and other outstanding performers active on the world stage, will work with the China NCPA Orchestra in the new season.

The orchestra will also go out of the NCPA to perform wonderful music in government offices, public institutions, hospitals, schools, enterprises and communities.

The China NCPA Orchestra will still carry out colorful “art experience” activities to popularize the refined art to enrich people’s cultural lives. The China NCPA Orchestra will hold affordable weekend concerts of classical music. Musicians and critics, such as CHEN Lin, LU Siqing, WANG Jiyan, LI Biao and ZHANG Xian, will appear at the “Focal Music Circle” one after another to share with music lovers and audiences their profound understanding of music. Besides, the orchestra will have two “public rehearsals” to provide audiences a close look at how musicians rehearse, so they could chat with musicians to learn more about what is behind the music.