The New York Philharmonic, in collaboration with CAMI Music, will celebrate the Chinese New Year for the fourth consecutive year, this time welcoming the Year of the Sheep with a program of Chinese composers, musicians, and traditional instruments, celebrating the cultural heritage of China and honoring the Chinese-American community, on Tuesday, February 24, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. Long Yu — music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, artistic director and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, artistic director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, and founding artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival — will return to the Philharmonic following his January subscription debut to conduct the Chinese New Year Concert for the fourth consecutive season.

This year’s program will feature cellist Yo-Yo Ma and sheng player Wu Tong as the soloists in the U.S. Premiere of Zhao Lin’s Duo for cello, sheng, and orchestra, written for Mr. Ma and Mr. Wu; Wu Tong performing Hai-Deng Yan’s Jin Diao for sheng and orchestra; selections from Borodin’s Prince Igor; aijieke (traditional Chinese bowed instrument) player Gulinaer Yiming performing Fantasia themes by Mukamu for aijieke and orchestra; and vocalist Lei Jia performing traditional Chinese folk songs. The Spring Festival Overture, Li Huanzhi’s traditional work celebrating the Chinese New Year, will once again open the concert.

The Philharmonic’s salute to the Year of the Sheep will also include a free outdoor event the afternoon of the concert at 4:30 p.m. on Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza featuring the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company performing the traditional Dragon Dance, as well as public school students from the National Dance Institute performing folk-inspired dances.

Gala events will include a pre-concert champagne reception, including a performance of the traditional Dragon Dance by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., the concert, and a seated dinner immediately following the performance. Gala dress will be traditional Chinese attire or black-tie. The Honorary Gala Chairmen are Mr. and Mrs. Maurice R. Greenberg, H.E. Ambassador Liu Jieyi, Mr. and Mrs. James D. Wolfensohn, and H.E. Consul-General Zhang Qiyue. The Gala Co-Chairmen are Angela Chen, Guoqing Chen and Ming Liu, Gary W. Parr, Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar L. Tang, and Shirley Young.

Yo-Yo Ma will have also appeared with the Philharmonic and the Silk Road Ensemble the previous week, February 19–21, in a concert celebrating that ensemble’s 15th anniversary.

As music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Long Yu played a central role in the establishment of that orchestra’s partnership with the New York Philharmonic to establish the Shanghai Orchestra Academy and Residency, part of the New York Philharmonic Global Academy.

Artists
Conductor Long Yu is music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, artistic director and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, artistic director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, and founding artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival. He shares the position of artistic co-director of the MISA Festival with Charles Dutoit, bringing classical music to the young people of Shanghai. Long Yu was born in Shanghai in 1964 into a family of musicians. His grandfather Ding Shande, a renowned composer, encouraged him to study at the Shanghai Conservatory and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Upon returning to China Mr. Yu was appointed principal conductor of the Central Opera Theatre in Beijing. He has been named a Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and received the Montblanc Cultural Foundation’s 2002 Arts Patronage Award and the title of L’onorificenza di commendatore from the Italian government in 2005. In 2014 Mr. Yu and the China Philharmonic became the first Chinese conductor and the first Chinese orchestra to play at the BBC Proms with a televised performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall viewed by millions of people across the U.K. He performs regularly with ensembles and opera companies including the Orchestre de Paris; BBC, Chicago, Singapore, and Sydney symphony orchestras; Hamburg State Opera; Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; The Philadelphia Orchestra; and Los Angeles, Munich, and Hong Kong Philharmonic orchestras. Long Yu played a leading role in establishing the Shanghai Orchestra Academy, a partnership between the New York Philharmonic and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, with collaboration from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In 2014 the Philharmonic named Long Yu an honorary member of the International Advisory Board, a network of advocates and ambassadors connecting with individuals and institutions in their home countries to cultivate the Philharmonic’s long-term reach and influence worldwide. Mr. Yu’s first appearance with the Philharmonic was leading the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra on a New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks program on Central Park’s Great Lawn in 2010, and he first led the Orchestra in January 2012, conducting the inaugural Chinese New Year Concert. He most recently led the Orchestra in the February 2014 Chinese New Year Concert and Gala, and is scheduled to lead the Orchestra with soloist Maxim Vengerov January 22–24, 2015.

The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Mr. Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras worldwide and his recital and chamber music activities. His discography includes more than 90 albums, including more than 17 Grammy Award winners. Mr. Ma serves as the artistic director of Silkroad, an organization he founded to promote cross-cultural performance and collaboration at the edge where education, business, and the arts come together to transform the world. More than 80 works have been commissioned specifically for the Silk Road Ensemble, which tours annually, including a January 2015 appearance with the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Ma also serves as the Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Negaunee Music Institute. His work focuses on the transformative power music can have in individuals’ lives, and on increasing the number and variety of opportunities audiences have to experience music in their communities. Mr. Ma was born in Paris to Chinese parents who later moved the family to New York. He began to study cello at the age of four, attended The Juilliard School, and in 1976 graduated from Harvard University. He has received numerous awards, among them the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of Arts (2001), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010). In 2011 Mr. Ma was recognized as a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has a very strong interest in the importance of culture in society and the ways in which it can produce positive social change, and currently serves as a UN Messenger of Peace and as a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts & the Humanities. Most recently, Mr. Ma has joined the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees. He has performed for eight American presidents, most recently at the invitation of President Obama on the occasion of the 56th Inaugural Ceremony. Mr. Ma made his Philharmonic debut in 1978 during the Music in May festival, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto alongside Shlomo Mintz and Yefim Bronfman conducted by Alexander Schneider; he most recently performed Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul, led by Alan Gilbert, during the 2013–14 season’s Opening Gala Concert, and will have appeared with Mr. Gilbert, the Silk Road Ensembles, and the New York Philharmonic, February 19–21, 2015.

Wu Tong, a National Class One Performer of the Central Nationalities Song and Dance Troupe, began studying sheng and suona at age five with his father, and entered the primary school affiliated to the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music in 1983. He graduated in 1994 from the conservatory’s college division, where he trained in Chinese wind instruments. After meeting Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 at Tanglewood, Wu became a founding member of the Silk Road Ensemble, and has since participated in all of its recordings. He is also the founding vocalist of the Beijing-based metal band Lunhui (Again), the first rock band to appear on Chinese Central Television. Wu has performed as soloist with an array orchestras including the London Sinfonietta, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic; made his operatic debut in 2008 playing two roles in Stewart Wallace’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter at San Francisco Opera; and appeared on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman. Wu developed a looping technology for a new electronic sheng, giving the Chinese traditional wind instrument a new lease on life, and he wrote and arranged the sound track for Wong Kar Wai’s film Ashes of Time Redux, featuring Mr. Ma; the film was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 and was featured in that year’s New York Film Festival. Wu Tong’s 2011 solo album was nominated for Taiwan’s Golden Melody Award for Best Crossover Album, and he was named the 2012 Musician of the Year by the China Institute in New York. His collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma on “Kuai Le,” featured in Yo-Yo Ma and Friends: Songs of Joy and Peace, won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album in 2010. In November 2013 Wu Tong joined Mr. Ma in the World Premiere of Duo, a double concerto written specifically for them by Chinese composer Zhao Lin. Wu Tong made his New York Philharmonic debut in the World Premiere of Bright Sheng’s The Song of Dance and Tears, conducted by David Zinman in March 2003.

Lei Jia — coloratura soprano, Chinese vocalist, Chinese National Class-A performer, and advocate and ambassador for the New National Style — is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the China Conservatory of Music. Her folk, bel canto, and theatrical performances have earned her numerous industry awards — including gold honors at the Golden Bell Awards and National Young Singers TV Competition — and her songs have earned top honors at the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Arts & Literature Performance Awards, Five One Project honors from the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, and three PLA Third-Class Merit Awards. In 2008 Ms. Lei was featured on the album The Songs of the 56 Chinese Nationalities, chosen as a national gift for dignitaries and diplomatic envoys during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In 2009 she performed The Ballad of Mulan in Japan and Russia, and received the Outstanding Artist Award from Valery Gergiev. She has also performed the original folk opera Ballad of the Canals, the opera Leaving Cambridge, the Northern Shaanxi Opera The Ladies of Mizhi, the Men of Suide, the Qinghai flower drama Snow White Doves, and the historical opera Qu Yuan. In 2011 she appeared in solo performances in Xiamen and Beijing to promote the traditional culture of China’s ethnic groups. In 2014 Ms. Lei attended the fourth AsiaInfo Forum for Arts and Literature Gala, sang the anthem and the song Dreams Everlasting at the second Summer Youth Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, and sang Indigo Woad Blooms at the APEC Arts & Literature Gala. Passionate about the welfare of her community and society, she has been named China Fire Safety Promotions Ambassador, Youth Climate Ambassador, Ambassador for the Care of Rural Migrant Children, and Ambassador for Caring for the Handicapped, and has been given the individual award for Green China Public Welfare. This concert marks her New York Philharmonic debut.

Aijieke player Gulinaer Yiming was born in Ürümchi, in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Gulinaer is a State First-Class artist and vice-concertmaster in The National Music Ensemble of Xinjiang Art Theatre, and is known throughout China for her performances on the traditional Uighur stringed instruments aijeke and hushtar, and for her work as a theatrical musician. After graduating from Xinjiang Arts Institute in 1982, she became a member of the Xinjiang Ensemble of Songs and Dances (the original name of The National Music Ensemble of Xinjiang Art Theatre). That same year she also participated in the Ürümchi city–conducted Autonomous Region’s National Instrumental Solo Competition — becoming the first musician to earn praise on the hushtar since the re-discovery of the instrument — and was awarded first prize at Jinan’s National Ethnic Instrumental Solo Competition. For more than 25 years she has performed across China’s various regions, and has been awarded numerous first prizes not only in Xinjiang, but also across China. Gulinaer Yiming has performed for factory and mine workers as part of the Cultural Artistic Troupe for Countryside, and has contributed to spreading Uighur music in China and worldwide. She has appeared in more than 20 countries, including in Chinese embassies and in programs fostering communication between cultural groups around the world. This concert marks her New York Philharmonic debut.

Tickets for these concerts start at $55. Tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org.

Group discount:

Group discount is 25% and waive some of the fees for minimum of 15 tickets.  (212) 875-5672 or emailgroups@nyphil.org