Famous conductor Shao-chia Lu will conduct two completely different concerts at the National Concert Hall in Taipei on March 13 with pianist Kun Woo Paik and on March 19 with percussionist Martin Grubinger.

Lu is the new music director of Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra. He won first prize at three major competitions of conducting, Besan?on, Trento and the Kondrashin Young Conductors Competition in Amsterdam. He also served as General Music Director of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonic Koblenz and the Koblenz Theater, and later of the Staatsoper Hannover.

On March 13, he will first conduct "Spirits on the Tip of Toes" with the NSO and with French-based Paik. Lu says the performance will be dominated by Russian masterpieces from the first half of the 20th century, including Suite No.3, Op.101 and Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.16 from "Romeo and Juliet" by Sergey Prokofiev and "The Fire Bird" by Igor Stravinsky.

The NSO will perform a complete musical dance work. Lu says that in contrast to purely musical suite, the size of the orchestra will expand. In addition to three harps, there will also be a small musical group behind the stage. This way, music fans will be able to hear the full dimensions and scope of "The Fire Bird," making this a performance well worth waiting for.

As to "Drum Beat, Heart Beat!" on March 19, it forms a part of the Taiwan International Festival. Lu, the NSO, and Austrian percussion Wunderkind Martin Grubinger, 26, will perform the piece "Frozen in Time."

Lu has a reputation as one of the leading opera conductors of his generation. He served as principal conductor of the Komische Oper Berlin from 1995 to 1998, conducting hundreds of performances of dozens of operas.

He later worked with opera houses in Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Belgium and Germany.

Grubinger was born in Salzburg, Austria, and received the Bernstein Award at the 2007 Schleswig Holstein Music Festival. He was named as artist in residence with the orchestra of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig for this year.


Written by Stephan / culture.tw

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