China NCPA Orchestra
Music Director: LÜ Jia | Conductor Laureate: Zuohuang Chen
China NCPA Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Beijing. Since its founding in 2010, the orchestra has fast established itself as one of the most adventurous and dynamic orchestras in the country and earned an international reputation through extensive performances abroad.
 
Numerous world-renowned artists have collaborated with the orchestra, including Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph Eschenbach, Fabio Luisi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Leif Segerstam, Gunter Herbig, Shao-Chia Lü, Xian Zhang, Rudolf Buchbinder, Stephen Kovacevich, Khatia Buniatishvili, Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Haochen Zhang, Kyung-Wha Chung, Vadim Repin, Siqing Lü, Feng Ning, Jian Wang, Gautier Capucon, Alison Balsom, Sabine Meyer, Placido Domingo, Leo Nucci, Renee Fleming among many others. Lorin Maazel worked closely with the orchestra before his passing and praised the musicians for their “amazing professionalism and great passion in music”. Christoph Eschenbach also declared it as “one of the finest orchestras in Asia”.
 
Over the years, the orchestra has gained critical acclaim for its artistic excellence in both concerts and operas. To date they have played in over 60 NCPA opera productions, including classical repertoires such as Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Aida, Otello, Nabucco, Tosca, Turandot, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, and newly commissioned works Rickshaw Boy, The Long March, The Jinsha River, Visitors on the Snow Mountain and The Dawns Here Are Quiet. Their live recording of The Ring Without Words with its creator, Lorin Maazel, was released on SONY Music worldwide, the only recording the great maestro ever made with an orchestra from China. The orchestra has consistently offered creative and diverse programmes through its concert season. As part of its continuous efforts to promote contemporary music, the orchestra presented the China premieres of major works by John Adams, Toru Takemitsu et al. and gave the world premieres of dozens of substantial new orchestral works commissioned from composers across the globe, including Qigang Chen, Bright Sheng, Jiping Zhao, Michael Gordon, Kalevi Aho, et al. It has also played a significant role in the NCPA's Young Composers Programme, providing a unique platform nurturing the next generation of composers in China.
 
With its commitment to educational and outreach activities, the orchestra has presented a series of Weekend Matinee Concerts at its home venue, providing local audience specially selected programmes and accessible ticket prices. The orchestra also frequently initiates wide-reaching educational projects in association with educational institutions across the city. Alongside its concert series, the orchestra has received widespread praise for its international appearances at the Kissingen Summer Music Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and concerts in many cities in Germany, as well as in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul, Daegu, Abu Dhabi, Taipei and Macau. In 2014, the orchestra undertook its first North American tour and returned in 2017, where it performed at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Davies Symphony Hall and other major venues in the US and Canada, under the baton of LÜ Jia. Musical America praised its “joyful confidence and youthful strength”. Concerto Net described it as “a polished, first rate ensemble”.
 
In 2020, the NCPAO led by the Music Director LÜ Jia has collaborated with Xincao Li, Lin Chen, Biao Li, Yang Yang, Yi Zhang, Siqing Lü, Haochen Zhang and many other artists in presenting online concert series over 5 months period. In November, the NCPAO announced its 2020-21 season after several rounds of adjustments. The new season sees the orchestra’s performances in operas including Fang Zhimin, Visitor on the Snow Mountain, Lan Huahua, and the premiere of the NCPA’s new production of Gianni Schicchi. In celebration of the 250^th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and the 160^th anniversary of Mahler’s, Music Director LÜ Jia conducts the NCPAO in Egmont with actor Qiang Sun and a series of classic symphonies and chamber works of the two great composers. The 2020-2021 season features several Chinese artists’ debuts, among them Feng Yu, Jiemin Zhang, Jinxu Xiahou, Jianing Kong, Tianqi Du, and Yue Chen. Highlights of the season also include the returns of Guoyong Zhang, Ding Yuan, Yuanming Song, Xuefei Yang, Qiang Zhang, Jia Li, and David Wang. As the Composer-in-Focus, Jiping Zhao’s music will be performed by the NCPAO throughout the season. 
 
In February 2012, LÜ Jia took up the post of Chief Conductor, succeeding Zuohuang Chen, NCPA’s then Artistic Director of Music as well as a founder of the orchestra. In January 2017, LÜ Jia started serving as NCPA's Artistic Director of Music and the NCPA Orchestra's Music Director.
 

Conductor: LÜ Jia
The Chinese conductor LÜ Jia has received great acclaim internationally. Born into a musical family in Shanghai, LÜ began studying piano and cello at a very young age. He later studied conducting at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, under the tutelage of esteemed conductor Xiaoying Zheng. At the age of 24, LÜ entered the University of Arts in Berlin, where he continued his studies under Professor Hans-Martin Rabenstein and Robert Wolf. The following year, he was awarded both the First Prize and Jury’s Prize at the Antonio Pedeotti International Conducting Competition in Trento, Italy, and launched his career as a conductor.

Over the past decades, he has conducted over 2,000 orchestral concerts and opera performances in Europe and America, and became the first Asian conductor to serve as the artistic director of a major Italian opera house, as well as the first Chinese conductor to lead Chicago Symphony. He has worked with important productions at the La Scala in Milan, Bayersiche Staatsoper in Munich and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as opera houses in Lausanne, Turin, Rome, Naples, Venice, Florence, Frankfurt and Stuggart. He has also worked with many renowned orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Munich Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphoniker, Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Lyon National Orchestra in France, Finnish Radio Symphony, Hamburg Radio Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and many others across Europe, America and Australia.

LÜ Jia was the first Chinese conductor to record Felix Mendelssohn’s complete orchestral works, and also the only conductor so far who has recorded the complete works by the important Swedish composer Ingvar Lidholm. His interpretations of German Classical Romanticism and French Impressionists have been praised for their “extremely convincing musical interpretation” with “musical precision and perfect baton technique.” Having directed nearly 50 operas in Italy and Germany, homelands of the European opera tradition, he has also been praised by Italian music critics as “a conductor who understands Italian opera even better than the Italians themselves do”.

In 2007, his performance of La Gazza Ladra at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro was voted as European Opera Production of the Year. That same year, in recognition of his important contribution to musical culture in Italy, LÜ Jia was awarded the President’s Prize by President Giorgio Napolitano. In 2012, the Domingo International Vocal Competition invited LÜ Jia to serve on the jury, making him the Competition’s first-ever Chinese jury member.

In 2012, LÜ Jia was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Opera at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing, China. Under his musical direction, NCPA's own productions of Lohengrin, The Flying Dutchman, Othello, La Nozze di Figaro, Un Ballo in Maschera, Tosca, and many other works, have received glowing reviews from the international press. With these brand new productions aspiring to high international standards, the NCPA has become a strong contender in the world of opera, and also launched an exciting new chapter in the history of professional opera productions in China. In the meantime, the NCPA Symphony Orchestra, under LÜ’s baton, has fast established itself as one of the leading new ensembles in the orchestral world in China, presenting impressive performances season after season.

In 2017, LÜ Jia has been appointed as Artistic Director of Music of National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), and Music Director of China NCPA Orchestra. Before taking up his current posts in Beijing, LÜ served as Music Director at Verona Opera, Artistic Director at Symphony Orchestra of Tenerife, as well as Chief Conductor at Trieste Opera, Symphony Orchestra of Florence, Lazio Chamber Orchestra of Rome and Norrkopping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. In addition to his NCPA music directorship, he is also currently the Music Director and Principal Conductor of Macao Orchestra.
 

Soprano: SONG Yuanming
Soprano residing in Austria, SONG Yuanming serves as professor and doctor supervisor at Voice & Opera Department of the Central Conservatory of Music. She obtained a Double Master’s Degree in “Opera and Light Opera” and “Art Songs and Cantata” at University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna under the tutelage of Professor Franz Lukasovsky, and a Graduate Artist Diploma, the highest academic degree for a performing major in the Voice & Opera Department.

SONG has won several awards including the first prize at the 48^th Concours International de Chant de La Ville de Toulouse; Best Soprano Award of the 13^th “Ferruccio Tagliavini” International Vocal Competition in Austria; the first prize and the award of "Best Singer" at the 44^th Antonín Dvořák International Vocal Competition in Czech Republic. She has performed at Salzburger Festspiele, Schlosstheater Schönbrunn, Gläserner Saal of Goldener Saal Wiener Musikvereins, Grazer Opera House, Seoul Arts Centre, Karlovy Vary Opera House, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Buenos Aires Teatro, China National Centre for the Performing Arts, and has worked with Wiener Philharmoniker, Philadelphia Orchestra as well as renowned conductors including Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

She has starred operas including Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Fledermaus, Turandot, La Bohème, Rickshaw Boy, The Sunrise, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Don Pasquale, Die Lustige Witwe, and L’elisir d’amore.
 

Tenor: WANG Chong
Tenor WANG Chong is one of the resident singers of the National Center for Performing Arts. He has performed several leading roles at the NCPA, like Rodolf in La Bohème, Commissar PENG in The Long March, Xiangzi in Rickshaw Boy, title role in Fang Zhimin, Amir in Visitors on the Snow Mountain, and Macduff in Macbeth with Plácido Domingo. He also appeared as a number of main roles in other productions such as Tannhäuser, Der fliegende Holländer, Die Meistersinger, Il Trovatore, and Norma. He served as the lead singer in the song Common Home - Ode to Peace in A Millennium Promise at the gala “Millennial Road” for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

He is one of an alumni of the Merola Opera Program and also the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow. He gave his debut in the circle of American top opera houses by playing Ilus in the epic opera Troy at the beginning of the new season. Afterwards, he played Lord Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor and won high praise from conductor Nicola Luisotti, the Music Director of the San Francisco Opera. The same year he participated in Die Zauberflöte, performed Rudolf in Luisa Miller and held a concert with pianist Martin Katz.
 
Program
Verdi: Overture to Nabucco
Verdi: “Ave Maria”, from Othello (Soprano: SONG Yuanming)
Verdi: “Tacea la notte placida”, from Il Trovatore (Soprano: SONG Yuanming)
Verdi: Overture to Luisa Miller
Verdi: “Oh fede negar potessi…Quando le sere al placido”, from Luisa Miller (Tenor: WANG Chong)
Verdi: “Di quella pira”, from Il Trovatore (Tenor: WANG Chong)
Verdi: Prelude to Act III, from La Traviata
Verdi: “Parigi, o cara”, from La Traviata (Soprano: SONG Yuanming / Tenor: WANG Chong)
Verdi: “Libiamo ne'lieti calici”, from La Traviata (Soprano: SONG Yuanming / Tenor: WANG Chong)
Intermission
Brahms: Symphony No.3 in F Major, Op.90
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante
III. Poco allegretto
IV. Allegro
 
 (Please check program updates at the concert.)