Venue: Concert Hall

Dates: November 03, 2018

About

From September 13th to November 28th, world-renowned symphony orchestras and in-demand maestros will ehchant the audiences at the “NCPA Pure Classical 2018”, a NCPA series that presents absolute essentials of classical music in the autumn. The star-studded classical music feast invites orchestras Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, Das Orchester Der Staatsoper Berlin, Orchestra dell´Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conductors Gustavo Dudamel, Christian Thielemann, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Antonio Pappano, artists Lang Lang, Annie-Sophie Mutter and Emmanuel Pahud, to name just a few.

Programme

Johannes Brahms

Hungarian Dances No. 1 in G minor, No. 3/10 in F major

Johannes Brahms

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

—— Intermission ——

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Conductor

Lawrence Foster

American conductor Lawrence Foster is the Music Director of l’Opéra de Marseille, a position he has held since 2013. In December 2017, he was appointed to the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, beginning in September 2019. Previously, he has been the music director of Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, Orchestre philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, among others. The Gulbenkian Orchestra, whose music director Lawrence Foster has been for ten years, appointed him Conductor Laureate; he has toured with this orchestra across the world, partnering with leading soloists such as Lang Lang, including in Germany, Spain, Brazil as well as major festival destinations.

One of the most sought-after conductors of our time, Mr. Foster has been invited as guest conductor by many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini of Parma, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic, and has frequently appeared at major festivals including the Lucerne and Grafenegg Festivals. Lawrence Foster holds dear his deep and long-standing musical friendships with other outstanding artists such as Evgeny Kissin, Arcadi Volodos, and Arabella Steinbacher.

In addition to his concert engagements, Lawrence Foster is an accomplished opera conductor and has appeared with major opera companies throughout the world. His opera productions at the Opéra de Marseille have received the widest critical acclaim and his regular guest conducting engagements at Frankfurt Opera, Hamburg State Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, among others, were often enthusiastically reviewed. Mr. Foster recently conducted a concert version of Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, which had overwhelming success, as did the Traviata he lead at the famous Savonlinna Opera Festival.

Mr. Foster's discography includes a number of highly acclaimed recordings for PENTATONE, notably of violin works with Arabella Steinbacher as well as of Bartok’s Two Portraits, Ligeti’s Romanian Concerto, Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta and Háry Janos Suite, and the Four Symphonies by Robert Schumann with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Strauss’ Zigeunerbaron with NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover. A critically acclaimed recording of Verdi’s Otello with the Gulbenkian Orchestra was released in 2017.

Born in 1941 in Los Angeles to Romanian parents, Lawrence Foster has been a major champion of the music of Georg Enescu, serving as Artistic Director of the Georg Enescu Festival from 1998 to 2001. In January 2003, he was decorated by the Romanian President for services to Romanian Music.

Artist

NING Feng Violinist

Established at the highest level in China, NING Feng performs regularly in his native country with major international and local orchestras, in recital and with the Dragon Quartet which he founded in 2012. Now based in Berlin and enjoying a global career, NING Feng has developed a reputation internationally as an artist of great lyricism and emotional transparency, displaying tremendous bravura and awe-inspiring technical accomplishment.

Recent successes for NING Feng have included a return to Budapest Festival Orchestra with Iván Fischer in Budapest and on tour to China performing Dutilleux L’arbre des songes, and on tour with Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and van Zweden which included performances in Singapore, Seoul, Osaka, Sydney and Melbourne, following his critically-acclaimed European tour with the orchestra in 2015, as well as successful debuts with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In recital and chamber music, he performs regularly with Igor Levit, amongst others, in many of the major festivals in Germany and elsewhere, including Kissinger Sommer, Heidelberg, Moritzburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schubertiade and La Jolla Music Society (California).

Highlights of Ning’s 2017/18 season include debuts with City of Birmingham Symphony with Gražinytė-Tyla playing Bruch Scottish Fantasy and Brahms Violin Concerto, with Royal Scottish National Orchestra performing Korngold, with BBC Scottish Symphony performing Bernstein’s Serenade with John Wilson and with New Jersey Symphony/Slobodeniouk. NING also returns to Bilbao Symphony Orchestra with Giancarlo Guerrero, China Philharmonic with Michael Stern, and Guangzhou Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic, both under the baton of YU Long. Chamber music highlights include returns to Wigmore Hall and Schubertiade to perform the Schubert Piano Trios with Igor Levit and Daniel Müller-Schott, and two all-Schubert programmes with Nicholas Angelich and Edgar Moreau in Lucerne, as well as his debut at Moritzburg Festival and a performance at Premiere Performances Hong Kong’s 10th anniversary gala concert.

Ning Feng records for Channel Classics in the Netherlands and his latest disc, Apasionado, with Orchestra Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias and Rossen Milanov, features works by Sarasate, Lalo, Ravel and Bizet/Waxman and was released in March 2016. Two further discs are due for release in the 2017/18 season: Bach’s complete solo works for violin, and the Elgar and Finzi Violin Concertos with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto.

Born in Chengdu, China, Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, the Hanns Eisler School of Music (Berlin) with Antje Weithaas and the Royal Academy of Music (London) with Hu Kun, where he was the first student ever to be awarded 100% for his final recital. The recipient of prizes at the Hanover International, Queen Elisabeth and Yehudi Menuhin International violin competitions, Ning Feng was First Prize winner of the 2005 Michael Hill International Violin Competition (New Zealand), and in 2006 won first prize in the International Paganini Competition.

Ning Feng plays a 1721 Stradivari violin, known as the ‘MacMillan’, on private loan, kindly arranged by premiere performances of Hong Kong, and plays on strings by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna.

Presenter

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

The Konzerthausorchester Berlin, founded in 1952 as the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (BSO), achieved recognition and international acclaim under principal conductor Kurt Sanderling (1960-1977). In 1984, the orchestra received its own venue at the Schauspielhaus Berlin on Gendarmenmarkt Square. In 2006, it was renamed Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Since the 2012/13 season, Iván Fischer has been the principal conductor of the Konzerthausorchester, with Juraj Valčuha as principal guest conductor since 2017/18. From 2019/20, Christoph Eschenbach will succeed Fischer as principal conductor.

With more than 12,000 subscribers, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin is among the orchestras with the highest number of regular visitors in Europe. With over 100 concerts per season, the orchestra can not only be experienced at the Konzerthaus Berlin, but also on concert tours throughout Asia, the USA and numerous European countries.

The Konzerthausorchester regularly inspires its audience with new concert formats, as well as unusual and exciting projects. Along with surprise concerts, new orchestral line-ups, spontaneous request programmes, public rehearsals and scenic concerts, there’s the unique concert series “Right in the Middle”. In this series, orchestral musicians separate their chairs, creating space for spectators to take their seats. The audience has never been able to get this close to the music. In 2017, the orchestra won the German Orchestra Foundation’s prestigious "Innovative Orchestra" award.

The Konzerthausorchester is especially proud of its home on impressive Gendarmenmarkt in the heart of Berlin. The building, called Konzerthaus Berlin since 2006, was opened as a theatre in 1821 and is one of the most beautiful works of the famous Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). After being destroyed in 1945 during the last few days of World War II, it was completely rebuilt from 1979 during the era of the German Democratic Republic. It has three halls, the historically restored Grand Hall (1,400 seats) and Small Hall (nearly 400 seats) and the modern Werner Otto Hall (250 seats) from 2003.