YU Long

Hailed by The New York Times as “the most powerful figure in China’s classical music scene,” the conductor and impresario YU Long has devoted his illustrious career to steering China’s growing connection to classical music while familiarizing international audiences with the country’s most eminent musicians and composers. Maestro YU currently holds the top position in China’s most prominent orchestras—Artistic Director of the China Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing and Music Director of Shanghai Symphony Orchestras—as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also co-director of Shanghai’s Music in the Summer Air (MISA) festival and Chair of the Artistic Committee of the Beijing Music Festival, an annual autumn event that he founded in 1998 and served as Artistic Director until 2017. After 20 years at the helm, Maestro YU recently stepped down as Music Director of Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and is now honorary Music Director and the Chair of the Artistic Committee. He is currently Vice President of the China Musicians Association and Chairman of its recently established League of China Orchestras.

This 2023-24 season, international guest appearances bring Maestro YU together with The Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, and at home he performs with renowned artists including pianist Stephen Hough, violinist Leonidas Kavakos，Julian Rachlin，baritone Matthias Goerne，soprano Olga Peretyatko，among others. In the fall, he gives the world premiere of Aaron Zigman & Mark Campbell’s Émigré with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (SSO), co-commissioned by the SSO and New York Philharmonic.

One of many career highlights, from February to April 2005, the China Philharmonic Orchestra took an international tour under the baton of Maestro YU Long. Within 40 days they appeared in 22 cities throughout North America and Europe. This is the first time a symphony orchestra gave performances in the two continents in China's history. Maestro YU led the China Philharmonic in 2014 in the first Chinese orchestral performance at the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, a concert viewed by millions of people across the United Kingdom. And, under Maestro Yu’s baton the China Philharmonic Orchestra became the first Chinese orchestra to perform at the Vatican’s Paul VI Auditorium, a concert attended by Pope Benedict XVI marking a giant step in bridging East and West.

Since taking the reins of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in 2009, Maestro YU’s initiatives include the 2014 opening of Shanghai Symphony Hall. That same year, he founded the Shanghai Orchestra Academy, China’s first post-graduate training programme for orchestral musicians, in partnership with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the New York Philharmonic, which also named Maestro YU an honorary member of their International Advisory Board, a 12-member network of advocates and ambassadors gathered to connect the Philharmonic with individuals and institutions in their home countries. Two years later, he launched the biennial Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition, a result of his relationship with the Stern family dating from the violinist’s appearance at the Beijing Music Festival in 2000 marking the 20^th anniversary of his groundbreaking China tour.

In June 2018, Maestro YU became the first Chinese conductor to sign an exclusive relationship with Deutsche Grammophon, offering the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra a global release and distribution partnership, and leading to the recording releases of Orff: Carmina Burana (Live From the Forbidden City) (January 2019) and The Song of the Earth (July 2021). In 2019, he led the orchestra on a tour of the United States and Europe, with performances at the BBC Proms and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw as well as the Edinburgh, Lucerne and Ravinia festivals.

As Music Director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2023, Maestro Yu expanded the orchestra’s repertory and touring outreach (to Europe, the US, Australia, Africa and the Middle East) as well as its educational mission. Between 2005 and 2007, the GSO organized the Canton International Summer Music Academy with a distinguished faculty including Martha Argerich and Gary Graffman. In January 2017, the GSO inaugurated Youth Music Culture Guangdong, a performance and educational initiative “opening a new page in the Chinese symphonic world” with Yo-Yo Ma as its first Artistic Director and Maestro YU leading its Artistic Committee.

Also a towering figure on the international stage, Maestro YU has conducted many highly acclaimed orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Staatsoper Hamburg, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

Born in 1964 into a Shanghai musical family, Maestro YU received his early musical education from his grandfather, the renowned composer DING Shande, later continuing his studies at the Shanghai Conservatory and the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. In the early 90s, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Central Opera House in Beijing and served as its conductor for three consecutive years, as well as Conductor of the Urban Council of Hong Kong and served as its annual opera conductor.

Among his achievements in China, YU Long was named the 2010 Person of the Year in the Arts Field and was also granted the 2013 China Arts Award and an Honorary Academician from the Central Conservatory of Music for his dedication to cultural exchange and music development in China.

Internationally, Maestro YU received the Arts Patronage Award of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation in 2002. A year later, he was named a Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2005, the Italian government honored him with the title of L’onorificenza di Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito. He was awarded France’s highest order of merit by joining the Légion d’Honneur in 2014. The following year, Maestro YU received the prestigious Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council and the Samuel Simons Sanford Award from the Yale School of Music. In 2016, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and also awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2018, he was conferred an Honorary Doctorate from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Olga Peretyatko 

Olga Peretyatko, one of the most sought-after sopranos of our time, was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. She started her musical career at the age of 15, singing in the children's choir of the Mariinsky Theatre. She completed a course as a choirmaster and then enrolled to study singing at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Olga Peretyatko has won several awards in international competitions such as Operalia, the opera competition organized by Plácido Domingo, where she won second prize, and she also recently received in Italy the important recognition of the Premio Franco Abbiati della Critica Musicale Italiana.From 2005 and 2007 Olga Peretyatko was a member of the opera studio at the Hamburg State Opera. In subsequent years she performed at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Berlin and Munich State Operas, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, La Fenice in Venice, at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and at the Festival La Folle journée de Nantes.

Olga Peretyatko gained international attention as Stravinsky's Rossignol in the acclaimed Robert Lepage production that premiered in Toronto in 2009, then presented at the Aix Festival in 2010 and subsequently at the Opéra Lyon, the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. She achieved great success in her role debuts as Adina in L'elisir d'amore in Lille, as Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro Massimo Palermo, as Gilda in Rigoletto at La Fenice in Venice, as well as at the Avenches Opera Festival.

In 2011, Olga Peretyatko debuted successfully as Giulietta (I Capuleti e I Montecchi) in Lyon and Paris. In Lausanne she made her debut in the title role of Handel's Alcina, and in Amsterdam she had her role debut as Fiorilla (Il Turco in Italia). Substituting for a colleague at the last minute, her performance of Adina in L'elisir d'Amore during the Pfingstfestspiele in Baden-Baden was praised, as was her debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Lucia di Lammermoor. She also received the highest acclaim at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as Matilde di Shabran in summer 2012, a production released on DVD by DECCA.

In 2013 and 2014, Olga Peretyatko's commitments included the Mozart Weeks, Salzburg Festival (Giunia in Lucio Silla), debuts at the Vienna State Opera, Zurich Opera House (Rigoletto), the Berlin State Opera and La Scala in Milan (Marfa in Die Zarenbraut), and performances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Adina in L'elisir d'Amore), the Hamburg State Opera (Adina in L'elisir d'Amore, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos), and her successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (Elvira in I Puritani). She returned to the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as Fiorilla (Il Turco in Italia), and sang Amenaide in Tancredi in Moscow (concert), L'Elisir d'Amore at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and toured in China with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal performing Strauss' Four last songs.

Olga Peretyatko also performed for more than 600,000 people at Le Concert de Paris, on 14 July 2014 for the Bastille Day celebrations, by the Eiffel Tower.

In 2015, Olga Peretyatko debuted to rave reviews as Violetta in La Traviata at the Opéra de Lausanne, followed by a new production of the same title at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. She returned to the Vienna State Opera for I Puritani, to La Scala in Milan for Rossini's Otello, to the Metropolitan Opera in New York for Rigoletto, along with debuts at the Teatro Regio in Turin in I Puritani, at the Tivoli in Copenhagen and at La Monnaie in Bruxelles in L'Elisir d'amore and at the Teatro Real in Madrid in Rigoletto, and she started off into 2016 with a highly successful tour to Baden-Baden, Vienna and Paris (Théatre des Champs-Elysées) performing concerts entirely dedicated to Gioacchino Rossini, as well with a equally successful return to the Vienna Staatsoper with Gilda in Rigoletto and her highly attended debut in her hometown with La Traviata at the Marinsky Theatre conducted by Valery Gergiev, followed by a spectacular house debut at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in one of her actual favourite roles, Gilda in Rigoletto.

Subsequent debuts are planned to take place, at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, New National Theatre in Tokyo, and Opéra de Monte-Carlo. She will also return in present and upcoming seasons to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala in Milan and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, to the Oper Zurich and Opéra Lausanne. Debuts are scheduled as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Konstanze (Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail), Leila (Les Pêcheurs des Perles), Amina (La Sonnambula), Anna Bolena (title role), and all four roles (Olympia-Antonia-Giulietta-Stella) in Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

Besides her opera career, Olga Peretyatko performs regularly in recitals and concerts throughout the world. She has an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical. Her first solo CD La Bellezza del Canto with arias from Rossini, Verdi, Donizetti, Massenet and Puccini was released in 2011, and her second recording Arabesque has been released in 2013, both to critical acclaim. Her third album, entirely dedicated to Gioacchino Rossini, Rossini!, was released in autumn 2015 and earned rave reviews.