On Tuesday 28 March 2017 at 9:00 pm, in the great hall of the University of Milan La Statale , JAMES PENG LIU, Music Director of the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra – one of the most important Chinese orchestras – will make his debut in Milan on the podium of the Orchestra UniMi, thanks to the collaboration with the Confucius Institute.

The program starts with a piece of the American period of IGOR STRAVINSKIJ: the Danses Concertantes (1942). Not being considered by the composer as  music for ballet (although years later it was just used  for this), in the composer’s intention they represent a summary of his musical thoughts at that time.

Lang Lang won in 1995 the Čaikovskij Prize playing the Chinese Rhapsody No. 2 written by the Chinese composer AN-LUN HUANG (1976), of whom the program of the concert proposes, as the European première, Flying free in the sky, second movement of the fantastic symphony The Deity in Cloud, performed as world premiere in April 2016 by the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by James P. Liu. The symphony is representative of the contemporary Chinese music  which finds inspiration in the ancient Chinese tradition but is interpreted through the canons of the modern Western orchestra.

With the Symphony No. 4 Tragic by FRANZ SCHUBERT, which closes the concert, we are back in the European cultural tradition. Written in 1816 by a nineteen years old Schubert, Symphony No. 4 deals with the cumbersome Beethoven model, like previous and subsequent Schubert’s symphonies. Although at that time it was essential to refer to this model, Schubert desired to distance himself from it.

Free admission for all 2016/2017 season  concerts upon registration here.
The entrance is allowed until seats are available.