Tour Dates: 2 - 6 Nov, 2012

Founded in 1986, the Taiwan Philharmonic, became an artistic affiliate of the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center in 2005.

Tour Dates: 2 - 6 Nov, 2012

19:30 2nd November Shanghai Oriental Art Center,  Ticket hotline: 021-6854 1234,
                                           Group ticketing: 021-3461 6170/71 ext. 601
19:30 3rd November  Wuxi Grand Theatre, Ticket hotline: 0510 6879 0818/ 4001009966
19:30 6th November  National Centre for the Performing Arts, Ticket hotline:010-66550000

Founded in 1986, the Taiwan Philharmonic, became an artistic affiliate of the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center in 2005. It has given thousands of concerts, launched many education programs, and hosted several music activities mostly at its resident venue, the National Concert Hall in Taipei. Tour performances were also regularly offered throughout Taiwan and in overseas, in places such as Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sapporo, Tokyo, Yokohama and Hong Kong.

The Taiwan Philharmonic works regularly with and internationally acclaimed musicians, including Lorin Maazel, K. Penderecki, Rudolf Barshai, Kek-Tjiang Lim, G. Schwarz, Uri Mayer, Joseph Silverstein, Leonard Slatkin, Christopher Hogwood, Christopher Poppen and many others.

The orchestra has been led by two noted principle conductors, Gerard Akoka and Urs Schneider, and benefited from the leadership of many music directors, including Tsang-Houei Hsu, Da-Shen Chang, Jahja Ling and Wen-Pin Chien. During Chien's tenure (2001-2007), the orchestra explored a wide range of repertoire, including the orchestral cycles of Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, R. Strauss and Tchaikovsky. In 2008-2010, Maestro Gunther Herbig was the Artistic Adviser and Principal Guest Conductor of the Taiwan Philharmonic. Under Mr. Herbig's leadership, the orchestra not only continues to build an extensive repertoire from classical to contemporary music, but also kicked off the project of "Call for Score" that commission and premiere orchestral works devoted to promoting the music of Taiwanese composers.

The Taiwan Philharmonic has also enjoyed performing theater/opera productions and working with the world-renown choreographer and founder of the Cloudgate Company, Lin Hwai-Min, director and founder of PWSHOP, Stanly Lai, the digital artists Klaus Obermaier, French stage director Lukas Hemleb and Juliette Deschamps. Since 2007, the orchestra has collaborated with world-class opera houses for its multinational productions, such as Der Rosenkavalier with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 2007, Carmen with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Norwegian National Opera and Opera Australia in 2009 and Madama Butterfly with Opera Australia in 2011.

Starting August 2010, Maestro Shao-Chia Lu has been Music Director of NSO and will lead the NSO continually to further enrich its performances and carry out its mission as the flagship of classical ensemble in Taiwan.

Shao-Chia Lü

The Taiwan-born Shao-Chia Lü studied music in Taipei, later at the Indiana University in Bloomington, USA, and also at the College of Music Vienna. His training was topped off with three important first prizes at renowned international conductor competitions: Besancon, Trento and Amsterdam.

In 1995, he began his opera career as Erster Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper Berlin. Numerous guest performances followed, including the Australian Opera Sydney and the English National Opera, the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the opera houses of Frankfurt, Hamburg and Stuttgart as well as the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 1998, Shao-Chia Lü took over the position of General Music Director of both the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz and of the Koblenz Theatre.

Shao-Chia Lü, as General Music Director of the Staatsoper Hannover between 2001 and 2006, has established himself firmly as an excellent opera conductor through numerous outstanding performances during this period of such repertoire as: Aida, Ernani, Le nozze di Figaro, Jenufa, Vec Makropulos, Fidelio, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Tristan und Isolde, Fliegender Hollander, Wozzeck, Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Salome.... In summer 2004, Shao-Chia Lü and the Staatsoper Hannover earned international acknowledgement by performing Pelleas and Melisande at the renowned Vienna and Edinburgh Festivals.

Shao-Chia Lü's recent opera engagements include: Parsifal and Katja Kabanova in Goteborg , Sweden , La fanciulla del west in Stuttgart , Eugene Onegin at the Komische Oper , Berlin , Madama Butterfly and Tosca in Sydney and Melbourne.

Alongside his opera activities, Shao-Chia Lü is equally at home on concert podiums. In 1994, he had his debut with the Munchner Philharmoniker by replacing Sergiu Celibidache at the last moment for 2 unchanged programms (including Bruckner's 8.Symphony). The triumph of these concerts brought him several further invitations from this orchestra. Apart from the Munchner Philharmoniker, Lü has worked repeatedly with many leading European orchestras, such as the Oslo Philharmonics, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Santa Cecilia Rome, the Norwegian and Swedish Radio Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Livepool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Goteborg Symphonics, the Orchestre National de France, the SWR Stuttgart, the Rundfunksinfonieorchster Berlin, the Staatskapelle Weimar and the Frankfurter Museumsorchester as well as the most important orchestras of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Violin Soloist: Joseph LIN

An active solo and chamber musician, Joseph Lin’s performances this past year have taken him to Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  He has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Sapporo Symphony, the Taiwan National Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Ukraine National Philharmonic.  His regular festival appearances include Marlboro, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and the Tucson Winter Festival.
In 2011, Joseph Lin joined the renowned Juilliard String Quartet as the ensemble’s new first violinist.  Along with the Quartet’s extensive performing schedule, Mr. Lin teaches violin and chamber music as a faculty member of the Juilliard School.

Mr. Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition.  In 1996, Mr. Lin was awarded First Prize at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts the same year.  In 1999, he was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award, and in 2001, he won First Prize at the inaugural Michael Hill World Violin Competition in New Zealand.  His recordings include the music of Korngold and Busoni on the Naxos label, the unaccompanied works of Bach and Ysayë on the N&F label, and the Formosa Quartet's debut CD released by EMI.

Joseph Lin's violin teachers have included Mary Canberg, Shirley Givens, and Lynn Chang.  Mr. Lin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2000.  In 2002, he began an extended exploration of China, spending 2004 studying Chinese music in Beijing as a Fulbright Scholar.  From 2007 to 2011, Joseph was an assistant professor at Cornell University.  There, Joseph organized the inaugural Chinese Musicians Residency in April 2009.  In 2009-2010, Joseph led a project with Cornell composers to study the violin Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, and to create new music inspired by Bach.  This culminated in a series of concerts premiering the new works alongside Bach's Sonatas and Partitas.

Program:

Reviews:

“Lu has an innate gift for flow and pulse. His tight, buoyant rhythms are the perfect match for this orchestra's incisive rhythms and astounding ensemble-sine qua non qualities, especially in the third movement of Mahler's Symphony No.5, a writhing, almost religious exorcism of the spirits that torment the first two movements.”

-- American Record Guide 2011/01

"The conductor Shao-Chia Lü is a master of nuance – and an exceptionally gifted conductor."

-- Suddeutsche Zeitung

"Madama Butterfly...Lü's musical watchfulness is terrier-like in its intensity. He pounces on the dramatic shifts in the score with a seemingly feverish energy. His sense of rhythm is exact and he knows how to signal unerringly each of the many small changes of pace in a thoroughly studied interpretation...he is, and deserves to be, the star of this evening"

-- The Sydney Morning Heral

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