15 days of live events for 15th MISA festival in July
The city's annual Music in the Summer Air (MISA) festival will return on July 1 with 15 days of live concerts, cultural talks, and other activities across the city. Musicians from around the world will not only perform in concert halls and live houses, but also at the city's many landmarks.
The 15th MISA has a lineup of both established artists and up-and-coming talent. Visiting musicians include the New York Philharmonic, German-British baritone Benjamin Appl, The GCG Chamber Orchestra and La Risonanza under the baton of Fabio Bonizzoni.
Jaap van Zweden will conduct the New York Philharmonic for two nights at MISA.
The festival will open on July 1 with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under the batons of four generations of Chinese conductors, from the orchestra's music director Yu Long, who will turn 60 during the festival, to emerging conductor Sun Yifan, who is turning 30.
The star-studded repertoire, featuring music by Chopin, Brahms, Strauss, and Mendelssohn, will also see soloists from different generations each night, from well-established cellist Wang Jian, in his late 50s, to piano prodigy Serena Wang who started winning awards at age 5 and just turned 20. The opening night will also feature famed violist Ning Feng, cellist Qin Liwei, and pianist Zhang Haochen.
Pianist Serena Wang
The opening will be followed by two nights of the much-anticipated return of the New York Philharmonic, which returned to Shanghai with the full orchestra for the first time since 2019. Jaap van Zweden will conduct the orchestra in two concerts of music by Mahler and Brahms with soloist Thomas Hampson on July 2, and Mozart and Copland symphonies on July 3.
The festival's signature chamber program includes seven concerts, starting with a repertoire of piano duos by Mozart and Arensky and the world premiere of a new two-piano eight-hand arrangement of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" by Shi Shucheng on July 4.
The chamber program also includes recitals by accordion player Ksenija Sidorova and baritone Benjamin Appl on July 5; the GCG Chamber Orchestra performing works of Bernstein, John Adams, Corigliano and Korngold on July 6; mezzo-soprano Wu Hognni and pianist Sergey Rybin on July 12; and musicians from the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra joining to perform pieces including Weber's Clarinet quintet on July 13.
The popular MISA Open Air outdoor concerts on the Shanghai Urban Music Lawn will return this year with seven free concerts. The program includes harmonica player Gianluca Littera and conductor Zhang Lu on July 5; the JZ Big Band on July 6; a tango trio with Ksenija Sidorova, Alexander Sitkovetsky, and Claudio Constantini on July 7; and the Italian Saxophone Quartet on July 8.
The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will collaborate with soprano Fang Qiong on July 9 under the baton of the orchestra's conductor-in-residence Zhang Jiemin. Novus-Classica Camerata, whose members are mostly in their 20s, will perform with 20-year-old pianist Serena Wang, under the baton of the music troupe's conductor and co-founder Jin Yukuang on the 11th. The outdoor program will close on July 12 with a night of music by the Makoto Ozone Jazz Quartet.
The Italian Saxophone Quartet will perform at the popular MISA Open Air on the Shanghai Urban Music Lawn.
On July 15, Yu Long and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will close the festival with a martial arts night, featuring Tan Dun's "Hero Concerto" and the world premiere of Elliot Leung's "Wuxia." Wuxia, which means martial arts, was written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jin Yong, or Louis Zha, a master of martial arts novels who passed away in 2018 at age 94.
