Musical star power comes to Shanghai

Zhang Haochen will perform with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. Provided to China Daily

Young pianist Zhang Haochen will play Beethoven with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra this week under the baton of maestro conductor Lorin Maazel.

The concert will be a major highlight for the Shanghai Oriental Art Center's 2012/13 music season. The program will consist of Romeo and Juliet Overture by Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No 4 by Beethoven and Rite of Spring by Stravinsky.

Born in 1990, Zhang got his fame as the gold medalist at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009. He made his debut recital at the Shanghai Concert Hall when he was 5. He moved to the United States in 2005 and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music under Gary Graffman.

"Beethoven's No 4 concerto for the piano is not a piece with a distinctive stance," he says. "You may even say it is ambiguous, but then it allows a player very broad space for interpretation.

"There is something very neat about him, nothing flamboyant. He's sharp and full of tension," Zhang says.

Zhang believes music has its own beauty and doesn't have to serve a story. "It brings out a most primitive idea from you. That's the most immediate response to music - don't try to interpret it with a second media," he says.

American maestro Maazel, 83, is the chief conductor of Munich Philharmonic through 2015.

Maazel was a child prodigy and guest conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra on the radio at the age of 11. He worked as the music director at the Cleveland Orchestra in the US from 1972 to 1982. His emotional, rich interpretation of music can be found in the first complete recording of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess.

Maazel has served as chief conductor or music director at many prestigious music institutions including Vienna State Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

This is Maazel's third visit to Shanghai Oriental Art Center. "The concert hall has extraordinary acoustic effect," Maazel says. "No extra efforts are needed to enrich or amplify the sound of the orchestra."

Munich Philharmonic was founded in 1893 and Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) himself directed the group in 1897 and premiered his symphonies No 4 and No 8 with the orchestra. His student Bruno Walter directed the posthumous premiere of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

The concert hall at Shanghai Oriental Art Center has almost 2,000 seats, and 90 percent of the tickets have been sold two weeks ahead of the show, according to the public department of the center.