“Imitation can be the sincerest form of flattery, as was demonstrated by two exciting concerts on consecutive nights at Carnegie Hall this weekend,” writes Anthony Tommasini in Sunday’s (7/23) New York Times. “On Friday, the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, an ambitious educational venture founded in 2013 by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, presented its annual program, conducted by Marin Alsop…. On Saturday night, Carnegie Hall presented the debut of the National Youth Orchestra of China, a training ensemble closely patterned on the American ensemble. The conductor Ludovic Morlot led a program that included a Chinese superstar soloist, the pianist Yuja Wang, in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto…. Friday’s concert opened with a crackling performance of John Adams’s ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine.’ … Then Ms. Alsop led the premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s ‘Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra,’ a Carnegie commission, [and] Mahler’s Symphony No. 1…. The Chinese orchestra opened Saturday’s program with an urgent performance of the Chinese-American composer Zhou Long’s earthy, kinetic ‘The Rhyme of Taigu’ (2003)…. It was great to see young musicians from the American orchestra in the hall cheering on their Chinese compatriots.”
Posted July 25, 2017
