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OF COURAGE AND HOPE:
QIN LI-WEI PLAYS BACH
SATURDAY 30 JANUARY 2021, 7:30PM
ESPLANADE CONCERT HALL
SINGAPORE
ONLY 250 TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR SALE.
Hailed by Gramophone as a “superbly stylish, raptly intuitive performer” and one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation, Chinese Australian cellist QIN LI-WEI makes a highly-anticipated return to the stage to play his first solo recital since the start of the pandemic. To mark this momentous occasion, Qin will perform a selection of complete suites from Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, the Everest of the instrument’s repertory, offering a guide to nearly everything a cello can do — as well as charting a remarkably complete anatomy of emotion and aspiration.
If the first suites may be taken as if they are sunnily refined sketches, it is in the final three that Bach seems to enter another sphere. There is the long, sinuous exhalation of melancholy of the Fifth Suite’s Sarabande. And the Prelude of the Fourth Suite’s pushing past rupture and loss to become a study in determination and courage.
As we emerge from a difficult 2020, not least for the arts, this is music for our present times: of life’s hardest struggles, the grit and pain in perseverance, the comforting beauty of hope, and the life-affirming grandeur of challenges overcome.
An epic personal journey not to be missed.
QIN LI-WEI
“Mr. Qin has a great deal going for him, including a meltingly beautiful tone, flawless centered intonation and an ironclad technique” (New York Times)
“Aside from an extraordinary technical fluency, he has a musical intelligence and sensitivity which is breathtaking both for its maturity and profound vision." (The Strad)
As one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation, Chinese Australian Qin Li-Wei has appeared all over the world as a soloist and as a chamber musician. After being awarded the Silver Medal at the 11th Tchaikovsky International Competition, Qin won First Prize in the prestigious 2001 Naumburg Competition in New York. “A superbly stylish, raptly intuitive performer ” (Gramophone Magazine, January 2015) was the description of the cellist’s Elgar and Walton concerti recording with the London Philharmonic.
Two times soloist at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, Qin has enjoyed successful artistic collaborations with many of the world’s great orchestras including all the BBC symphony orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, NDR-Sinfonierorchester Hamburg, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, La Verdi Orchestra Milan, ORH Vienna Radio Orchestra, Prague Symphony, Osaka Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony among many others. Leading conductors with whom he has worked include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Marek Janowski, Jaap Van Zweden, Gianandrea Noseda, Jan Pascal Totelier, Hans Graf, Yu Long, Lü Jia, Tan Dun, the late Machello Viotti, the late Jiří Bělohlávek and the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin. Qin has also appeared with chamber orchestras such as the Kremerata Baltika, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Munich, the Manchester, the Zurich, and the Australian Chamber Orchestras.
Highlights in recent seasons includes debuts with the London Symphony, Russian Philharmonic, Czech Chamber and Brussels Chamber Orchestras. Return visits include to the Finnish Radio orchestra, China Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
In recital and chamber music, Qin is a regular guest at the Jerusalem, Rheingau and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Music Festivals, and the Lincoln Centre Chamber Music Society, New York, with musicians including Daniel Hope, Nobuko Imai, Mischa Maisky and Peter Frankel.
He has recordings on Universal Music/Decca with the Singapore Symphony, on Sony Classical with Shanghai Symphony, and on ABC Classics with London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Qin was invited to join the BBC 'New Generations' scheme in 2001, and in 2002 received the Young Australian of the Year Award. Other major invitations included appearances at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (New Zealand Symphony), 2012 London Olympics, Davos World Economics Forum (Basel Symphony) and recently the Fortune Global Forum 2017 Opening Ceremony.
Prior to teaching at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory at the National University of Singapore, Qin was a professor of cello at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He is also a guest professor at Shanghai and Central Conservatories in China. As artistic director, Qin successfully founded the annual Qingdao International Cello festival in 2018.
Qin plays a 1780 Joseph Guadagnini cello, generously loaned by Dr and Mrs Wilson Goh.
