Music in the Summer Air, an annual festival hosted by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, opened on July 1 with a concert by the New York Philharmonic.
The American ensemble played under the baton of Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen a series of French compositions such as Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, Claude Debussy's La Mer (The Sea), and Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.
For the second full-orchestra concert on Wednesday, the New York Philharmonic and Salonen joined hands with French pianist Alexandre Kantorow, winner of the Gold Medal and Grand Prix at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition, to present Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 and Symphony No 3.
MISA, founded in 2010, is the first regular classical music festival in Shanghai aimed at attracting young audiences through a creative program fusing classical music with other art forms. This year, MISA began on July 1 and will continue until this Sunday, bringing 11 music ensembles, more than 300 overseas artists and 2,500 students who are taking the stage to present 29 concert hall performances and 24 online streaming concerts.
