National Symphony Orchestra plans diverse programming for new season

Taipei, Sept. 19 (CNA) The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) in Taiwan is set to open its 2024-2025 season with programming that showcases its diversity and expands educational projects nurturing young musicians.

The new season will highlight three themes -- Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, and science and technology -- NSO Music Director Jun Märkl said during a news conference at the National Concert Hall in Taipei on Wednesday.

"Mahler has a unique sense for the problems in the world, and just somebody who's facing a lot of difficult situations and finding the strength to overcome those," Märkl said.

"His music is dramatic, he's very tender, he's very powerful and always has this strong message, and even today, in something which enlightens us, gives us new energy and new hope that's why we like playing Mahler," said the German-Japanese conductor.

Märkl plans to lead the orchestra to play Mahler's symphony cycle, starting with Symphony No. 1 programmed for the season opening concert, he said.

Season opener

For the season opening concert in Taipei on Thursday, the NSO will first perform Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 with guest violinist Akiko Suwanai of Japan, the youngest winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition when she was 18 in 1990.

According to Märkl, the Bruch concerto was a missing piece during the previous season which highlighted several great concertos, and Suwanai has been invited to play the piece.

"I know she plays, in my opinion, the most beautiful version of this concerto. So, a very romantic, very emotional, very beautiful concerto played magnificently by Akiko. So I'm sure it will be a very enjoyable season opening concert."

Speaking about Bruch, who is known as a late romantic composer, the German composer created his romantic music when various different musical movements were going on, Suwasnai said. "But you know, like how we are living now, how difficult art it is for the moment, here and there,"

Suwasnai said she learned the piece as a child, and played it several times with different orchestras, but Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa gave her valuable advice when she debuted with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1996.

The violinist shared a memory from that time with reporters about what Ozawa told her: "you have to think, because you play nicely. But actually, you know I hear many of the soloists playing next to me, and in this space, you cannot just play nice."

She said they have worked together several times, and he likes how she plays, but Ozawa still wants her to push somehow what she can do. To try different ways to play a piece and push oneself is what a musician should do.

Youth orchestra

Following the season opening concert, NSO musicians and music students they coached during the summer will give a chamber concert at the Recital Hall in Taipei on Sept. 23.

The students are members of the National Symphony Youth Orchestra, which was launched in 2023 and for the first time traveled for an overseas tour "Dreams Ablaze" in Singapore and Thailand in early August.

The youth orchestra's chamber concert titled "Dreams Spirited," will perform a similar program as the one given in Singapore during the August tour, with an additional piece and a different selection of young musicians, including three Taiwanese who took part in all editions of the youth group -- 2023 summer, 2024 winter and summer, according to the NSO.

The four pieces performed on the August tour in Singapore included John Rutter's "Suite Antique," Gyorgy Ligeti's "Six Bagatelles," Dmitri Shostakovich's "Two Pieces for String Octet, Op.11" and Jörg Widmann's "180 beats per minute."

For the chamber concert in Taipei, Bohuslav Martinů's "Les Rondes, H.200" is added because the youth orchestra members are different from those during the chamber concert in Singapore, the NSO told CNA.

The members of the youth orchestra and NSO musicians are also scheduled to give a performance as a wind quintet during the 2024 Taroko Music Festival in Hualien County on Nov. 9.

Meanwhile, the NSO is accepting online applications until 5 p.m. on Sept. 27 from music students aged under 18 to take part in the 2025 winter edition of its youth orchestra in January, it said.

NSO Conductor Emeritus Lü Shao-chia (呂紹嘉) will lead the youth orchestra with the NSO's top musicians, giving music lessons and rehearsing the pieces the youth group will perform on a tour around Taiwan in late January, according to the NSO.

1-minute symphony extended

Märkl will conduct the NSO performance of Johannes Brahms's Symphony No.2 in D major, Op.73 and be joined by pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet for Camille Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No.5 in F major, Op.103 in two concerts in late September.

The first of two concerts will take place at the National Concert Hall in Taipei on Sept. 27, with the other concert the following day at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, which is known locally as Weiwuying, according to the NSO.

On Oct. 6, the NSO will play the season's first one-minute symphony "Adagio: As the Temple Collapsed" composed by Pan Wen-en (潘汶恩), who published another one-minute piece last season under a project Märkl introduced in 2022 to allow new composers to gain experience of actually working with an orchestra.

The NSO presented a "three-minute symphony" in February during the previous season, but no dates or details were available about the slightly longer experiment pieces.

Following the premiere of the one-minute symphony, the NSO and Märkl will be joined by Arabella Steinbacher for Violin Concerto No.5 in A major, K.219 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and "The Three-Cornered Hat" by Manuel de Falla of Spain.

Inaugural cello festival

In mid-October, the NSO housed in the National Concert Hall in Taipei and Weiwuying in Kaohsiung are taking part in the first Taiwan International Cello Festival founded by Switzerland-based cellist Chien Pi-chin (簡碧青) by hosting master classes, and workshops, as well as "Cello in the Multiverse" concerts.

Weiwuying will first host the "Cello in the Multiverse 'Best of Concert'" in the afternoon on Oct. 12, while the NSO will co-organize "A Day with 'Cello in the Multiverse'" series of three concerts at the Recital Hall throughout Oct. 13.

The festival will conclude with an open-air concert in the century-old Samsiu Garden in Yunlin County on Oct. 9.

During the same week, the NSO will also hold violinist Leonidas Kavakos's concert with the Apollon Ensemble, playing 4 violin concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach on Oct. 16, according to its website.