In Thursday’s (3/12) Washington Post, Anne Midgette reports, “The National Symphony Orchestra will tour China and South Korea for two weeks in June, the orchestra announced this morning. At the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the orchestra’s principal conductor, Iván Fischer, will lead the ensemble in five concerts in Macau, Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai. The NSO last performed in mainland China under Leonard Slatkin in 1999. The performances are timed to commemorate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. The NSO will then continue on to play two performances in Seoul and Goyang, South Korea. The tour, supported in part by funding from the Dow Chemical Company, is the orchestra’s first international trip since 2002. With additional funding from Amway, plus financial support from the Ministry of Culture itself, the tour, budgeted at $1.35 million, is ‘expected to break even,’ said an NSO spokeswoman. The repertory will include the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky violin concertos (with Leonidas Kavakos as soloist), Tchaikovsky’s 5th and Dvorak’s 7th symphonies, the overture to Wagner’s ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,’ and ‘Western Skies,’ the new work by the American composer Daniel Kellogg that the symphony will give its world premiere in April.”
Posted March 12, 2009
Change font size
