Xi'an Symphony Orchestra
The Xi’an Symphony Orchestra is a municipal symphony orchestra that speaks for Xi’an, and a professional resident orchestra at the Shaanxi Opera House and Xi’an Concert Hall.
At this special time-space coordinate point, the new era and new mission are bringing around the brilliance of Xi’an, the first stop on the Silk Road, in a spirit of friendliness, openness and inclusiveness; new strength and new ideas are driving this thousand-year-old ancient capital to make innovations continuously. The Xi’an Symphony Orchestra has written classics and innovation into its gene.
The growth of the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra have been witnessed by many world-class music masters including Josep Carreras Coll, Leo Nucci, Midori, TAN Dun, WANG Jian, Angela Hewitt, HE Hui, ZHENG Xiaoying, and Stephen Hough. After cooperating with the Orchestra, Carreras praised it as an “energetic and passionate orchestra with unlimited potential”. Mr. Leo Nucci said, “I am admired at the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra’s unremitting pursuit of artistic quality!” Mr. WANG Jian said, “The orchestra is fully immersed in rehearsals and performances. Its overall image is rare in China.”
Since its establishment, the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra has insisted on implementing a music season system. With their inherent passion for music, the members are always full of vitality and united as one, receiving high praise from all the artists who have cooperated with them.
In the 2018 music season, the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra invited dozens of outstanding artists from home and abroad to hold about 20 concerts. Following the development of classical music, they performed masterpieces by some representative figures including Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, etc. This music season was the fifth one organized by the Orchestra, with a variety of musical works composed during a period of 400 years performed for the audience. In November, the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra successfully put an end to its first international tour in Italy. This young symphony orchestra fully showed the European audience the refreshing Oriental charm.
In addition to the music season, opera performances have improved the virtuosity of the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra. It has successively performed the operas La Traviata, Tosca, Le Nozze di Figaro and Candide in the form of concert, making itself an excellent player in both opera and symphony scenes.
In October 2017, the Orchestra worked with an Italian opera production team in producing the opera Turandot, making the Shaanxi Grand Theatre China’s first theatre to have a homemade opera performed at the operating ceremony.
In October 2018, the Orchestra performed Bizet’s opera Carmen produced by the Shaanxi Grand Theatre to mark its anniversary. The famous music critic WANG Jiyan pointed out, “It is a large work produced from an international vision under high artistic standards. Not only is it faithful to the performance tradition of this opera, but it is given a new connotation.” In 2019, the Orchestra and the Chorus performed Verdi’s opera Rigoletto produced by the Shaanxi Grand Theatre with three famous European opera houses.
Art changes the future of a city. The Xi’an Symphony Orchestra insists on holding various popularization activities in enterprise zones and on campus. In 2013, it became the first symphony orchestra in China to give a public-spirited outdoor performance. Its outdoor performance has been watched by a total audience of more than 150 thousand over the years. People’s Daily and China Culture Daily said, “High-grade music is reaching citizens.” Xi’an Release commented, “The Xi’an Symphony Orchestra is changing the mental outlook of the city.”
Xi'an Symphony Orchestra Chorus
If there is a musical instrument which is both inartificial and changeful, it must be the human voice. Because of singing, we express our feelings, convey our ideas, pour out our heart and chant our aspirations to make the words more pleasant and the melody more understandable. Because of chorusing, we unite, respond, enrich and harmonize to release our heart and get closer to our belief through singing, and achieve mutual understanding and appreciation in singing.
A city needs a representative chorus to communicate with the world and attract more professional choruses to talk with it. That’s the original intention of establishing the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and is also our vision.
Our members were selected from the major conservatories of music and troupes around the world. The standard for chorus establishment and member recruitment is more than “professionalism”, while “prominence” matters, too. Our performances are not limited to singles or concerts. Instead, we use singing to polish the bright pearl on the crown of stage art—opera.
We are keenly aware that only professionalization can enable us to sing more professionally and go farther. The Shaanxi Grand Theatre opened in October 2017, a year which saw our birth. We use our self-produced opera Turandot to celebrate the birth of the Chorus. In October 2018, the Chorus performed its second opera Carmen, achieving a great success. In September 2019, Rigoletto, an opera produced by us with the world’s three major opera houses, was staged unprecedentedly. The magazine Opera praised it to be a “world-class fine production that boasts a perfect combination of reality and romanticism.”
In the new year, we will continue to establish good communication with the vocal music and chorus lovers in Xi’an. Together we have visited solemn halls, collected folk elements in primitive, fresh wildernesses, prostrated ourselves before the sudden flashes of inspiration from the great masters in the Renaissance, and reviewed the Chinese classics precipitated in the memorable past days.
The Xi’an Symphony Orchestra Chorus will continue to sharpen its professional artistic skills to give higher-level performances in the presence of those who have a passion for singing and inject inexhaustible artistic vitality into the city.