Voices of the Era & Echoes of the Soul
--- A prelude to “New Shanghai” 5th New Music Week of Shanghai Conservatory of Music 2012
By Wen Deqing, 2012-2-19
While the memory of tickets hard to come by for the 4th New Music Week is still fresh in mind, intense preparations are being done by the committee to set the stage for the 5th New Music Week 2012, set for Oct.14-19 in Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Shanghai Concert Hall, covering such a wide range of activities as eleven concerts, five lectures and one music criticism contest. This new music week is sure to offer a fabulous feast of varied and vigorous new music with a large crowd of virtuosos and excellent musical works.
Concerts portrait of great maestros at home and abroad, like Ye xiaogang, S. Gubaidulina, H. Holliger, G. Kurtag, G. Crumb and H. Birtwistle, are convincingly secured with quality performances by the two ensembles in residence, celebrated Swiss Emsemble Contrechamps and French Les Temps Modernes, the latter especially favored by composers, as well as Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Tiankong Women’s Choir and Holand Ensemble Insomnio. The Contemporary Music Concert held at Shanghai Concert Hall will lead the New Music Week out of the ivory tower into the society to do a service to the general public. And the international superstar S. Namtchylak singing Khoomei, together with the Portrait Concert of Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll, will help extend contemporary music to a wider range of categories. The three composers-in-residence, S. Gubaidulina, Ye Xiaogang, S. Namtchylak will add to the glory and glamour of this new music week by coming in person and offering some advice to young composers and players. Brilliant speeches by the famous painter Chen Danqing and the prominent scholar Yu Dan will expand the new music week in greater scope and depth in contrast to its previous ones.
But the most striking feature for this edition lies in its freshness and aliveness --- All the music are freshly composed by living composers and will be premiered here. It will also put more talents on display in the performance of new music for ensemble, chorus and orchestra music, especially commissioned by it, and will hold a Master Class for International Students’ Works Concert, as they represent voices of this era and echoes of the soul respectively.
Delighted to say, as its popularization and influence are increasing at home and abroad, the New Music Week is enjoying a steady flow of support from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Shanghai Culture Development Foundation, culture Foundations outside China and Hujingmin Contemporary Music Foundation in particular as always. This gives us every reason to believe that there is a bright future ahead of contemporary music and the great stream of music will flow on vigorously forever.
Wen Deqing
Artistic director of the New Music Week
of Shanghai Conservatory of Music
