Composer

Mahler’s The Song of the Earth ends with an extraordinary fade out, as a contralto sings ‘everywhere, forever…forever and ever.’ It captures beautifully the way music lives around us and in our memory and is the perfect way to open our 2026 Season.

Simone Young conducts Mahler’s Song of the Earth

Sydney Opera House

Music Director Xian Zhang introduces Seattle audiences to the dramatic, sensuous and completely unique sound world of Peking opera with Qigang Chen’s Iris Dévoilée (Iris Unveiled). Writing for Peking and Western-style singers and traditional Chinese instruments, he evokes Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, and “eternal feminine” aspects — simple, coy, wanton, sentimental, jealous, melancholy, hysterical, lustful .... Balancing this music is the dark drama of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Composed at a moment of political oppression and personal danger, its ambiguities and secrets reveal themselves differently to each listener, though its urgent and ecstatic finale always thrills.

EPSG:4326

Xian Conducts Iris Unveiled

Benaroya Hall

YCA Award Concert Weekend 2

Mozarteum Foundation

Qigang Chen , born in China and coming to Europe in 1984, is considered the last student of Olivier Messiaen. In five very short movements, the orchestra portrays the "Five Elements" ("Wu Xing") according to Chinese philosophy: water, wood, fire, earth and metal - in that order. The wood and metal sound of the orchestral percussion plays an important role.

Myth and Nature

Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr

Debussy and Ravel

Seoul Arts Center

Conductor Junping Qian joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra for a free afternoon studio concert at Maida Vale.

Stravinsky provides the Fireworks to open the concert, followed by violist Diyang Mei who joins the BBC SO to perform the UK premiere of Chinese-French composer Qigang Chen’s Reflet d’un temps disparu (Reflections of a Vanished time), originally for cello and orchestra but here in an arrangement for viola. The concert ends with Shostakovich's lively First Symphony.

Qian conducts Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Chen

BBC Maida Vale Studios

From Shanghai to Paris and culminating at The Great Gate of Kyiv, our season finale is a journey across the Atlantic introduced by a fanfare by composer in residence David Ludwig. Our musical travels are led by returning 2020 violin soloist Nancy Zhou whose, “incredible technique married with captivating emotional depth,” (KC Studio) is sure to stun.

Masterworks 6: Ludwig & Mussorgsky

Oregon Center for the Arts

Grants Pass High School

Collier Center for the Performing Arts

Tonight's concert features performances of Qigang Chen's Wu Xing (Five Elements), Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, and the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with Changyong Shin '24 AD as piano soloist.  Hugh Wolff conducts the NEC Philharmonia.

NEC Philharmonia + Hugh Wolff: Chen, Strauss, Rachmaninoff

New England Conservatory

Tonight's concert features performances of Qigang Chen's Wu Xing (Five Elements), Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, and the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 with Changyong Shin '24 AD as piano soloist.  Hugh Wolff conducts the NEC Philharmonia.

NEC Philharmonia + Hugh Wolff: Chen, Strauss, Prokofiev

Youlan Ji, Piano

The Juilliard School

O fortuna! So begins Carl Orff’s famous work for chorus and orchestra, Carmina burana. But there’s more to this epic masterpiece than the thunderous opening chorus, known far and wide for its use in Hollywood films and advertisements. Drawn from medieval poems that vividly celebrate the secular topics of love, lust, excess and indulgence, Carmina burana spans the full range of musical styles, ranging from the power and majesty of full orchestra and chorus to the delicate intimacy of a single human voice.

Carmina Burana

Gautier Capuçon brings “an uncanny sweetness of tone” <em>(Gramophone)</em> to Qigang Chen’s nostalgic reflection on childhood, first love, and other sweet firsts. Long Yu also conducts the opening of Rimsky-Korsakov’s lyrical epic and Rachmaninoff’s virtuosic Symphonic Dances, with a sonic palette that includes tubular bells and evocations of Russian Orthodox chant.

Rachmaninoff and Gautier Capuçon

Rose Theater

After a showstopping performance with the Russian National Orchestra in 2019 and a stunning virtual concert in 2020, International Tchaikovsky Competition Silver Medalist George Li returns in his Orange County recital debut.   An exceptional musician at the young age of 25, this Harvard grad has rapidly established a major international reputation as a pianist with an effortless grace, brilliant virtuosity and poised authority far beyond his years.   Li gave his first public performance at Boston’s Steinway Hall at the age of ten and in 2011, performed for the president at the White House in an evening honoring Chancellor Angela Merkel. He was the recipient of the 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, a recipient of the 2012 Gilmore Young Artist Award, and the First Prize winner of the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions.

Composer

Qigang Chen

Events

Past events

25 - 28 Feb, 2026

Simone Young conducts Mahler’s Song of the Earth · Sydney Symphony Orchestra

12 - 15 Feb, 2026

Xian Conducts Iris Unveiled · Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra

About

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