Soulful symphony goes live again in Suzhou

The almost magical concert, with which the venue reopened, featured some classics, including Ding Shande's five-movement musical Long March Symphony, the symphonic poem August First co-composed by Liu Fu'an, Bian Zushan, Ma Youdao and Cheng Shouchang, and the piano-orchestra piece Oriental Skyline composed by Huang Kairan.

"Like our audiences, we too missed performing at the concert hall. Rehearsing and doing live shows at this venue have been part and parcel of our lives for a long time. It has an incredible sentimental value," says conductor Chen, who is also the music director of Suzhou Symphony Orchestra. To make the occasion extra special, the seventh performing season of the orchestra was announced the same night. The new season, which will run till next August, will comprise 58 concerts of various forms－from a full-sized orchestra to chamber music by different groups of musicians. It will cover compositions of 60-plus international legends such as Italy's Gioachino Rossini and Giacomo Puccini, and France's Charles Camille Saint-Saens.

Chen Guangxian, the co-founder of the troupe, says during the new season, the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra will perform music pieces that are rarely staged in China. The list includes Transfigured Night, the string sextet composed by Arnold Schoenberg during his younger days. It is a romantic piece based on a poem of the same name by Richard Dehmel.

The list of rare pieces also includes Frozen in Time, a concerto for percussion and orchestra composed by Avner Dorman and Wu Xing, and Five Elements, a five-movement suite composed by Chen Qigang, portraying the traditional Chinese elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal.