Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra
Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra, founded jointly in March 2010 by the former Yunnan Opera and Dance Drama Theater Symphony Orchestra and the Kunming Symphony Orchestra (respectively established in 1997 and 1987), is the only symphony orchestra in China named after the people’s musician, Nie Er. Among the five still existing and state-owned theaters and orchestras which are under the governance of Kunming Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau, it is the only one which has an independent organizational structure in Yunnan Province and is a public welfare institution wholly funded by the government. In 2016, Mr. HUANG Yi, a well-renowned conductor, was hired by Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra as the first artistic director and chief conductor. Since then, great efforts have been made to help this orchestra grow into a professional symphony orchestra with first class standards to act as a city visiting card featuring the most inspiring cultural and artistic attributes of Kunming.
Over the years, with the support of the Kunming Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal government, Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra has been committing itself to building up a business. It has been focusing on training and managing their staff as well as improving their working methods in order to improve its performance. It has produced numerous original symphony works of Yunnan, taking the nationalization of symphony as its own mission. With more than 100 charity performances during every annual music season which includes more than 20 significant concerts, the Orchestra boasts great achievements, such as promoting symphonic music culture among Kunming citizens and a vast number of music lovers. In 2012, on the 100^th Birth Anniversary of Nie Er, Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra which was named after the People’s Musician held activities in Yuxi in memory of Nie Er and went on a tour in Beijing and Shanghai. In June of the same year, the Orchestra participated in the national symphony TV exhibition show for “the 70^th Anniversary in Memory of the Publication of Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art by Mao Tse-tung” held by CCTV Music Channel and received favorable reviews. In order to promote the beauty of Kunming, the Orchestra took part in five consecutive Western China Symphony Music Weeks. It introduced new works in 2013 including “Plateau Feelings”, “Lijiang Style” and “Yekuo Mountain of Lahu” and achieved a roaring success when going on tour in Yinchuan, Chengdu, Guiyang and other places. In January 2014, the Orchestra took part in “the 12^th Yunnan New Repertoire Performance” with “Plateau Feelings”, “Lijiang Style” and “Yekuo Mountain of Lahu”, which made it the winner of two First Prizes for Music Creation as well as an Award of Excellence for a New Repertoire. In 2014, the Orchestra composed and introduced the symphony suite “Dianchi Lake-Love to the Mother Lake”, which won a unanimous praise in its first debut. In the same year, the Orchestra performed new original works of Yunnan in “the 5^th China Chongqing Music Season” and was also widely praised. In August 2014, the Orchestra went to Singapore and took part in an international competition, where it won the first-ever two gold awards and five silver awards in the international competitions for Yunnan province. In July 2016, it was awarded four golden medals, and enjoyed favorable reviews from the Competition Committee and the Singapore audience. In 2015, the Orchestra won two gold awards in Xiamen International Double Bass Art Festival. It participated in the “Caravan of Culture - A Long Journey to Thousand Villages”, an event organized for “bringing cultural benefits to people” for two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017, with 10 charity shows per year.
In October 2017, it was the only symphony orchestra in Western China to participate in the 20^th Beijing International Music Festival, in which it performed the orchestral suite “A Shi Ma”, a Yunnan's local folk music work, which was adapted by the renowned commissioned composer Mr. ZOU Ye from the movie “A Shi Ma”, originally composed by LUO Zongxian and GE Yan. In 2018, the Orchestra invited Mr. CUI Bingyuan, a famous composer, to write a “Symphony of the Comrades” by adapting the military songs of the Military School in Kunming in its memory. In 2018, the album featuring the Symphonic Suite “A Shi Ma” won the “Top 10 Hi-Fi Albums Award 2018” and ranked the “Best Symphonic Suite Album of the Year” in the Top 10 Records List. In 2019, the Symphonic Suite “A Shi Ma” album won the honorary title of the “Best Original Classical Album” in the 3^rd CMIC Music Awards. For the 2019-2020 music season, in order to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Orchestra commissioned the famous composer Mr. ZOU Ye to write a large-scale symphonic chorus called “The Inspiring Sound” based on Nie Er’s works and the symphony “Colorful Yunnan” on the theme of this province minorities’ music.
On the first of October 2019, for the celebration of the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra, and the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor HUANG Yi, were invited to Beijing to take part in the event called “Thousand People Symphony” on Tian An Men Square together with 16 further Chinese orchestras. In 2020, the Orchestra took the Symphonic Suite “A Shi Ma” to take part in the Shanghai Music in Summer Air event and received critical acclaim.
Having long been committed to the “Bringing in and Going out” policy, Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra has been cooperating with a large number of well-known conductors from home and abroad, such as Christian Ehwald, Mihhail Gerts, Donald Portnoy, BIAN Zushan, ZHANG Guoyong, LÜ Jia, YANG Yang, LI Xincao, LIN Daye, XIA Xiaotang, ZHU Qiyuan, Kahchun Wong and Darrell Ang to help enhance its overall professionalism. To that end, it also has invited renowned Chinese and foreign pianists, such as Haochen Zhang, Meng-Chieh Liu, Siheng Song, George Li and Serena Wang; violinists such as Siqing Lü, NING Feng, Mengla Huang, Xiaoming Wang, Yossif Ivanov and Mayu Kishima; cellists such as Li-Wei Qin, Bonian Tian and ZHAO Jing; singers such as DAI Yuqiang, YAO Hong, Yuanming Song and SHEN Yang. During this period, it has received the support from great experts in the field of classical music, such as LIU Yunzhi, CHEN Yun, XU Dongxiao, JIN Hui and Linlin Wong, just to mention a few. The year 2016 saw the first music season of the Orchestra, where they enhanced the performance skills and experience while enlarging their perception of music.
Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra has always taken the promotion of the symphonic music among people and the improvement of mass culture as an obligation. Drawing upon the elements of the Yunnan folk music, it is putting a lot of efforts to deliver symphony works of high quality to cater well for the public and carry forward the spirit of unremitting self-improvement and hard work.
 

 

 
Conductor: HUANG Yi
As one of the most exciting Chinese conductors in the world, Mr. HUANG Yi is currently the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra, the Principal Conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Principal Guest Conductor of National Ballet of China Symphony Orchestra.
HUANG Yi was born in 1986 into a family of musicians in Beijing. Musical education in his early childhood came from his father HUANG He, a famous music professor, and he later studied at the Central Conservatory with Prof. YANG Li and Prof. YU Feng. After graduation with a top-level grade for bachelor study, as a student recommended for admission, HUANG Yi continued his graduate study in the Central Conservatory of Music. From 2011, he continued his study at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin with Prof. Christian Ehwald and Prof. Hans-Dieter Baum. Outstanding music talents and excellent educational background make HUANG Yi a rising star on the stage of classical music.
HUANG Yi’s career started in 2009 as Maestro Seiji Ozawa’s assistant conductor. In the year of 2012, he was recommended by Maestro YU Long and made his opera debut conducting the China Philharmonic Orchestra in the 15^th Beijing Music Festival’s new production of Chinese opera The Savage Land. In 2013, as the assistant conductor of Maestro Christian Thielemann, HUANG Yi participated in rehearsing and conducting Parsifal at the Salzburg Easter Festival. In the same year, he assisted Maestro Gustav Kuhn in rehearsing and conducting Parsifal’s Chinese premiere at the 16^th Beijing Music Festival. Two years later in MISA’s closing concert, HUANG Yi conducted Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and they successfully performed the Ping Pang Concerto’s world premiere.
HUANG Yi became the assistant conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra in 2015, meanwhile he joined the conducting faculty of the Central Conservatory of Music. In the next year, he became the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Kunming Nie Er Symphony Orchestra. He was soon invited to be an assistant professor at Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler” Berlin. HUANG Yi has been the Principal Conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chief Conductor of National Ballet of China Symphony Orchestra since January of 2019.
Mr. HUANG has successfully conducted Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, New Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa Ongaku-Juku Symphony Orchestra, Busan Philharmonic Orchestra of Korea, China Central Opera House Symphony Orchestra, China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra, Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, Shaanxi Philharmonic Orchestra, Fujian Opera and Dance Drama Theater Symphony Orchestra, China Youth Symphony Orchestra, Macao Youth Symphony Orchestra, China Juvenile Symphony Orchestra, China Film Symphony Orchestra, etc. He has collaborated with numerous distinguished soloists including Yuqiang Dai, Changyong Liao, Song Wei, Warren Mok, Liping Zhang, Chenye Yuan, Ning Liang, Jianyi Zhang, SHEN Yang, Chuanyue Wang, Yuanming Song, Siqing Lü, Feng Ning, Li-Wei Qin, Haochen Zhang, Augustin Dumay, Alison Balsom, Andreas Ottensamer, Mengla Huang, Wei Wen, Zhijiong Wang and Xuefei Yang.

 
Program
ZHANG Chao: Three Paintings of Yunnan’s Colors
DU Mingxin: Jade Fairyland
BAO Yuankai: Song of Riddles
ZHANG Chao: Golden Snake Dances with Rapture
WANG Xilin: Yunnan Tone Poem, the Fourth Movement “Torch Festival”
ZOU Ye: Symphonic Suite “A Shi Ma”
 
(Please check program updates at the concert.)