Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has made significant achievements within this Europe Tour: it showed Chinese symphony to the world...

From 20 August to 27 August, with the organization of Wu Promotion, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra became the first invited Chinese orchestra to perform in Luzern Festival in Switzerland, The Tiroler Festspiele and Grafenegg Festival in Austria and the summer music festival of Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. By participating in those major music festivals, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra took a big step forward in increasing Chinese orchestras’ global impact. Under the baton of conductor Long Yu, SSO attracted over 6,000 spectators all over the world in those four concerts.

For this tour, the orchestra specially picked some pieces that have a synthesis of Chinese musical elements: Hutongs of Beijing composed by Aaron Avshalomov reveals the picture of traditional life in the ancient streets in Beijing, renowned masterpiece The Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto composed by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao. There were also some works of western style like The Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

On 20 August, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra gave its first performance in Luzern Festival, becoming the first Chinese orchestra in the musical festival’s 80-years history. By offering high quality performance, the artists received a huge applause from the knowledgeable audience with two standing ovations. Legendary Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki praised SSO’s performance as ‘the best Symphony No. 5 in D minor by Dmitri Shostakovich I’ve ever heard’. On 22 August, the orchestra completed its second performance of the tour in The Tiroler Festspiele in Austria, it was regarded as the continuation of their friendly relationship since the 24-hour production of Der Ring Des Nibelungen conducted by Gustav Kuhn in Shanghai Symphony Hall back in 2015. A special guest was in the audience: the daughter of Ferdinand Adler, the principal first violin of SSO during 1939-1947. She brought some precious photos and press reviews of her father, which were the most vivid evidence of SSO's musical events during that time.

On 24 August, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra appeared in Grafenegg Festival, which is founded by piano master Rudolf Buchbinder. The renowned pianist and his wife attended to the concert and came to backstage specially to congratulate SSO’s success after the performance. On 27 August, SSO’s 2017 Europe Tour finalized in the world famous Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg. This most acoustically advanced concert hall took 800 million euros and 10 years to be constructed, and nowadays it is considered as one of the most prestigious concert halls worldwide. Months before the performance, tickets for SSO’s concert were sold out already, music lovers who didn’t get a ticket could also enjoy it from the open air concert cinema on the hall's plaza. There was also a live streaming of this performance on the official website and YouTube channel of the concert hall.

Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has made significant achievements with this Europe Tour: it showed Chinese symphony to the world, and it also supposed a fast growing involvement of Chinese orchestras into cultural exchanges. Here, Wu Promotion wants to thank: music festivals for their invitation; Mr. Kexin Li, Culture Attaché of the Chinese Embassy in Austria, Mr. Ping Chen, Culture Attaché of the Chinese Embassy in Germany and Ms. Yanping Gao, Consul-General of The People's Republic of China in Zurich for their support; Mr. Long Yu, artistic director of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Ms. Ping Zhou, President of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and all artists for their trust. Thanks to everyone who has worked hard for this tour.