Friday, April 10, 2026, 8 pm
at Jordan Hall,
Boston
Presenting The Shanghai Quartet Weigang Li
李偉綱,
violin
Angelo Xiang Yu
于翔, violin
Honggang Li
李宏剛, viola
Sihao He
何思昊,
cello
"
~ Program
~
Joseph Haydn: String Quartet
in G minor, Op. 74, No. 3, “Rider” I. Allegro
II. Largo assai
III. Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio
IV. Finale: Allegro con brio
Tan Dun: Feng Ya Song
(String Quartet No. 1) I. Feng
(folk song)
II. Ya (art song / court music)
III. Song (ritual song)
~ intermission
~
George Gershwin: Lullaby
Antonín Dvořák:
String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “American” I. Allegro
ma non troppo
II. Lento
III. Molto vivace
IV. Finale: Vivace ma non troppo
"A
testament to the temperament symbiosis of its
two generations of members, the ensemble can
come together from their four far-flung
locations to function as a gleaming and
supremely engaged entity every time they tour.
(referring to Dvorak’s String Quartet No. 12,
Op. 96 “America”) The Shanghai delivered the
generously kind and hopeful Bohemian tribute to
American ideals with exuberant but un-pushed
power, consoling warmth, exquisite collective
advocacy, delicacy of details, and signal solo
perfection. " - by Lee
Eiseman,The Boston Musical Intelligencer
event photos: Chung Cheng
event photos: Xu XiaoPei
The Shanghai Quartet Over
the past 40 years, the Shanghai Quartet has become one of the
world’s foremost chamber ensembles. The Shanghai’s elegant
style, impressive technique, and emotional breadth allows the
group to move seamlessly between masterpieces of Western music,
traditional Chinese folk music, and cutting-edge contemporary
works. Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, soon after
the end of China’s harrowing Cultural Revolution, the group came
to the United States to complete its studies; since then the
members have been based in the U.S. while maintaining a robust
touring schedule at leading chamber-music series throughout
North America, Europe, and Asia.
Recent performance highlights include performances at Carnegie
Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Freer Gallery
(Washington, D.C.), and the Festival Pablo Casals in France, and
Beethoven cycles for the Brevard Music Center, the Beethoven
Festival in Poland, and throughout China. The Quartet also
frequently performs at Wigmore Hall, the Budapest Spring
Festival, Suntory Hall, and has collaborations with the NCPA and
Shanghai Symphony Orchestras. Upcoming highlights include the
premiere of a new work by Marcos Balter for the Quartet and
countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo for the Phillips Collection,
return performances for Maverick Concerts and the Taos School of
Music, and engagements in Los Angeles, Syracuse, Albuquerque,
and Salt Lake City.
Among innumberable collaborations with eminent artists, they
have performed with the Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri Quartets;
cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Menahem Pressler,
Peter Serkin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yuja Wang; pipa virtuoso
Wu Man; and the vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The Shanghai Quartet
appears regularly at many of North America’s most prominent
chamber-music festival, including annual performances for
Maverick Concerts, the Brevard Music Center, and Music Mountain.
The Shanghai Quartet has a long history of championing new
music, with a special interest in works that juxtapose the
traditions of Eastern and Western music. The Quartet has
commissioned works from an encyclopedic list of the most
important composers of our time, including William Bolcom,
Sebastian Currier, David Del Tredici, Tan Dun, Vivian Fung,
Lowell Lieberman, Zhou Long, Marc Neikrug, Krzysztof Penderecki,
Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, and Du Yun. The Quartet had a
particularly close relationship with Krzysztof Penderecki; they
premiered his third quartet – Leaves From an Unwritten Diary –
at the composer’s 75th birthday concert and repeated it again at
both his 80th and 85th birthday celebrations. Forthcoming and
recent commissions include new works from Judith Weir, Tan Dun,
and Wang Lei, in addition to a new work from Penderecki.
The Shanghai Quartet has an extensive discography of more than
thirty recordings, ranging from Schumann and Dvorak piano
quintets with Rudolf Buchbinder to Zhou Long’s Poems from Tang
for string quartet and orchestra with the Singapore Symphony.
The Quartet has recorded the complete Beethoven string quartets
and is currently recording the complete Bartók quartets.
A diverse array of media projects run the gamut from a cameo
appearance playing Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4 in Woody
Allen’s film Melinda and Melinda to PBS television’s Great
Performances series. Violinist Weigang Li appeared in the
documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, and the
family of cellist Nicholas Tzavaras was the subject of the film
Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep.
Serving as Quartet-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of
Music at Montclair State University since 2002, the Shanghai
Quartet joined The Tianjin (China) Juilliard School in fall 2020
as resident faculty members. The Quartet also is the
Ensemble-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and
visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and
Central Conservatory in Beijing. They are proudly sponsored by
Thomastik-Infeld Strings and BAM Cases.
Weigang Li
李偉綱, violin Born
into a family of well-known musicians in Shanghai, Weigang Li
began studying the violin with his parents when he was 5 and
went on to attend the Shanghai Conservatory Middle School at age
14. Three years later, in 1981, he was selected to go to study
for one year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music through
the first cultural exchange program between the sister cities of
Shanghai and San Francisco. In 1985, upon graduating from the
Shanghai Conservatory, Weigang Li left China to continue his
studies at Northern Illinois University and later studied and
taught at The Juilliard School. Besides his parents, other
important teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Tan Shu-Chen,
Robert Mann and Isadore Tinkleman.
Mr. Li was featured in the 1980 Oscar winning documentary film
From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. He made his solo debut
at 17 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as
soloist with the Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, BBC
Scottish Symphony and Asian Youth Orchestra.
Weigang Li is a founding member and first violinist of the
world-renowned Shanghai Quartet since 1983. Now in its 38th
season, the Shanghai Quartet has performed nearly 3,000 concerts
in 35 countries and recorded over 30 albums, including a highly
acclaimed 7-disc set of complete Beethoven string quartets.
Weigang Li is currently a violin professor at The Tianjin
Juilliard School, an Artist-in-Residence at Montclair State
University in New Jersey and also a violin professor at Bard
College Conservatory of Music. He also holds the title of guest
concertmaster of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and guest
professor at both the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central
Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
Angelo Xiang Yu
于翔, violin
Violinist
Angelo Xiang Yu, recipient of both a 2019 Avery Fisher Career
Grant and a 2019 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, as well
as First Prize in the 2010 Yehudi Menuhin International Violin
Competition, has won consistent critical acclaim and
enthusiastic audience response worldwide for his astonishing
technique and exceptional musical maturity.
In North America, Mr. Yu recently appeared as a soloist with a
number of major orchestras including the San Francisco,
Pittsburgh, Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver, Houston, Colorado,
North Carolina, San Antonio, Puerto Rico, and Charlotte
Symphonies, as well as the Rochester and Calgary Philharmonic
among others. Internationally, he has appeared with the New
Zealand Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia,
Norwegian Radio Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Oslo
Philharmonic.
An active recitalist and chamber musician, he has performed in a
number of world-renowned venues such as the Konzerthaus Berlin,
the Louvre in Paris, National Centre for the Performing Arts in
Beijing, Victoria Theater in Singapore, Shanghai Symphony Hall,
Oslo Opera House, Auckland Town Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and
Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston. In March 2017, Mr. Yu
was chosen to be a member of the prestigious Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program (formerly CMS
Two).
Mr. Yu is also a frequent guest at major summer music festivals
including the Ravinia, Aspen, Grant Park, Chamber Music
Northwest, as well as at the Verbier and Bergen Festivals in
Europe. He also serves as artist faculty at Music @ Menlo and
the Sarasota Music Festival.
Mr. Yu joined the faculty at the New England Conservatory
Preparatory in 2015, and also serves as a guest faculty at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the fall of 2020, he
became the newest member of the Shanghai Quartet. He serves as
an Artist-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at
Montclair State University and as a resident faculty member at
The Tianjin Juilliard School.
Born in Inner Mongolia China, Angelo Xiang Yu moved to Shanghai
at the age of 11 and received his early training from violinist
Qing Zheng at the Shanghai Conservatory. He earned his
Bachelor’s and Master's degrees as well as the prestigious
Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory where he was a
student of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried, and served as
Mr. Weilerstein’s teaching assistant.
Mr. Yu currently performs on the 1715 “Joachim” Stradivarius
violin, generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Honggang Li
李宏剛, viola Honggang
Li is a founding member of the Shanghai Quartet, which is now in
its 38th season and has performed nearly 3,000 concerts in 35
countries and recorded over 30 albums.
Mr. Li began studying the violin with his parents at age seven.
When the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing reopened in
1977 after the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Li was selected to
attend from a group of over five hundred applicants. Among his
teachers were Li-Na Yu and Shmuel Ashkenasi.
He co-founded the Shanghai Quartet with his brother while
studying at the Shanghai Conservatory. The ensemble soon became
the first Chinese quartet to win a major international chamber
music competition (the London International). Mr. Li received a
master’s degree from North Illinois University and served as a
teaching assistant at The Juilliard School in New York. In 1987,
he won the special prize (a 1757 DeCable violin) given by Elisa
Pegreffi of the Quartetto Italiano at the First Paolo Borciani
International Quartet Competition in Italy.
Mr. Li started his teaching career at the Shanghai Conservatory
of Music in 1984. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence and
faculty member at the Montclair State University. He also is a
resident faculty member at the recently opened Tianjin Juilliard
School and viola professor at the Bard Conservatory. He has been
a guest professor of both the Shanghai and Beijing’s Central
Conservatory for the past two decades. Mr. Li has also been the
guest principal violist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since
2009.
Sihao He
何思昊,cello Cellist
Sihao He first came into international prominence in 2008 as a
14-year-old cellist winning first prize at the International
Antonio Janigro Cello Competition in Croatia. Later that same
year, he won the National Cello Competition in China. He is also
the Grand Prize winner of the prestigious 3rd Gaspar Cassadó
International Cello Competition in Japan, a laureate of the
Queen Elizabeth International Cello Competition International
and Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. In 2019, he won
3rd prize in Munich’s ARD International Music Competition.
He has appeared in numerous concerts both as a soloist with
leading orchestras and in recitals. After winning the Grand
Prize at the 3rd Gaspar Cassado Competition, he performed a
recital tour in Japan and China. As a soloist, He has performed
with many leading orchestras including the Bavarian Radio
Symphony Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic
Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Münchener Kammerorchester,
Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, Orquestra Sinfônica de
Piracicaba in Brazil, and the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra in
China.
As a chamber musician, he has appeared at Music@Menlo,
Bravo!Vail, Meadowmount School of Music and Rome Chamber Music
Festival. As a member of the Galvin Cello Quartet, he won the
2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition and joined the Concert Artists
Guild roster. Before coming to the US, his string quartet,
Simply Quartet, won first prize at the Haydn Invitational
Chamber Music Competition in Shanghai, China and was awarded
“The Most Promising Young String Quartet” at the 4th Beijing
International Chamber Music Competition. In March 2020, He was
chosen to be a member of the prestigious Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two).
Born in Shanghai, China, He holds a bachelor's degree from the
Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University where he
studied with Hans Jørgen Jensen and Julie Albers, and holds a
master's degree from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern
University. He is currently attending the Bienen School of Music
at Northwestern University for his D.M.A. degree under the
tutelage of Hans Jørgen Jensen. He served as a faculty member at
the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University and
is now a resident faculty at the Tianjin Juilliard School.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
By Dr. Jannie Burdeti
Joseph Haydn: String Quartet
in G minor, Op. 74, No. 3, “Rider” I. Allegro
II. Largo assai
III. Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio
IV. Finale: Allegro con brio
Franz Joseph Haydn—affectionally known as “Papa Haydn” even
during his lifetime—has long been regarded as both “Father of
the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet.” Although he
did not in fact invent these genres, his vast contribution of
more than 104 symphonies and 68 quartets was fundamental in
shaping them into the forms we recognize today. In the realm of
the string quartet, Haydn elevated the genre to a true
conversation among four equals. But this evolution was the
result of decades of continuous experimentation and refinement.
While string quartets at their humble beginnings were a simple
form made for entertainment, resembling light divertimentos or
solos for the violin with string accompaniment, under his wing,
they would become sophisticated and elegant four-movement
conversations. Even the cello, once confined largely to harmonic
support, was liberated into a fully expressive voice capable of
lyrical and virtuosic lines, marking the end of the first violin’s
longstanding supremacy.
In
1793, at the time he composed his
String Quartet in G minor, Op. 74, No. 3,
Haydn was a celebrated composer and newly retired. For nearly
three decades, he had served as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy
family. He dedicated his Opp. 71 and 74 quartets (six works in
total, three in each set), to Count Anton Georg Apponyi—hence
their designation as the “Apponyi” quartets. His G minor quartet
is the most famous of the set.
The
quartet begins with an arresting unison gesture of
acciaccaturas
(crushed grace notes), followed by a long, charged silence
before the first theme emerges. In this brief opening lies the
seed of what will follow: a remarkable organic development that
anticipates the structural economy later associated with Ludwig
van Beethoven. While the first theme is somber and dark,
beginning in the cello, the second theme offers a genial,
dance-like waltz. A short development follows, leading to a
dramatic climax, before the return is ushered in.
The slow movement, in E major—a key often associated with the
transcendent—unfolds as an ethereal, hymn-like meditation. Its
melody becomes increasingly ornamented with each return, lending
the movement a reverent atmosphere. The Menuetto begins with a
gentle lilt, its elegance balanced by a more serious Trio in the
minor key.
The
Finale is the source of the quartet’s moniker, “The Rider.” Its
galloping rhythm, spread between the instruments, evokes the
sound of a galloping horse. The virtuosic first violin part
propels the movement forward with brilliance and drive.
Tan Dun: Feng Ya Song
(String Quartet No. 1) I. Feng
(folk song)
II. Ya (art song / court music)
III. Song (ritual song)
Hailing from Hunan, China, the affable composer Tan Dun,
describes his hometown as the same city that is mentioned in
Giacomo Puccini’s
Madame Butterfly.
Having grown up during the Cultural Revolution, his early
success while still a student in China came with winning a prize
as the first Chinese composer in the Dresden International Weber
Chamber Music Competition in 1983. The work that was awarded was
his
String Quartet No. 1,
titled Feng
Ya Song,
referring to one of the oldest collections of Chinese poetry,
the “Book of Songs.” Tan Dun later burst into widespread public
fame through his film score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
which won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Tan
Dun explains the Chinese meaning of Feng
Ya Song
as folk song, court music, and ritual hymn, respectively. While
his award in the competition made some people from his country
proud, its amalgamation of strikingly modern language with that
of traditional Chinese elements at the time created quite a stir
and the Chinese government viewed the work as a protest, banning
it from public performances. The work is rooted in the Western
tradition of the string quartet, its musical language bears the
influence
of indigenous Chinese music as well as that of his musical
heroes Igor Stravinsky and Béla
Bartók,
and all the while, the work is composed through the filter of
Taoist aesthetic ideals. Largely atonal, the quartet, according
to musicologist Peter Chang,
“shows
a conscious attempt to modernize Chinese music and to make
contemporary Chinese music compatible with its Western
counterpart.”
The
first movement, Feng,
referring to folk music, begins with an ancient and almost
primitive atmosphere. He employs techniques such as pizzicati
(plucking),
glissandi
(sliding), and percussive bowing, to create uncommon timbres of
gentleness, increased intensity, and space. The second movement,
Ya,
representing court music, offers a marked contrast: the music
evokes refinement.
Silence also
plays a meaningful role here. The final movement, Song,
refers to ritual music. It is visceral and contains a raw,
almost primal energy. After much rhythmic interplay, the work
ends in a persuasive solidarity between the four musicians.
In
2018, Feng
Ya Song: String Quartet No. 1
was revised for the Shanghai Quartet. It stands as more than an
early composition—it is a defining statement of Tan Dun’s
artistic voice. It signals his lifelong exploration of sound,
ritual, and cultural synthesis.
George Gershwin: Lullaby
George Gershwin contributed an immense catalogue of works during
his short life of thirty-eight years. Moreover, he irreversibly
altered the course of American music through his remarkable
synthesis of jazz, blues, popular song, and classical tradition.
In fact, his unique musical style was so compelling that he was
refused composition lessons by the likes of Nadia Boulanger,
Arnold Schoenberg, and Maurice Ravel because they did not want
to dilute his individuality.
Gershwin’s
Lullaby was
conceived at the age of twenty-one for his harmony and
orchestration teacher, Edward Kilenyi. He shared it among his
close associates, who performed it a number of times in private
settings to great liking. While the
Lullaby
would later be repurposed in his one-act opera, “Blue Monday,”
the original form of the string quartet would not be publicly
performed until 1967.
Cast
in ABA form, the work begins gently with harmonics in the first
violin, echoed by the cello in a rocking, lullaby lilt. The
melody that ensues is characteristically American with its
bluesy undertones and swing. The middle section becomes more
subdued before the gentle and charming melody from the opening
is welcomed once again. George’s brother, Ira, wrote, “It may
not be the Gershwin of
Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F,
and his other concert works, but I find it charming and kind.”
Antonín Dvořák:
String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “American” I. Allegro
ma non troppo
II. Lento
III. Molto vivace
IV. Finale: Vivace ma non troppo
“When
I look back on my thirty-five years as president of the American
National Conservatory of Music, there is nothing I would be more
proud of than the fact that I succeeded in bringing Dr. Dvořák
to America.” -Jeanette Thurber
Born
near Prague,
Antonín
Dvořák was, by the late twentieth century, widely considered as
the most successful composer in Europe after Johannes Brahms.
Through the vision and patronage of philanthropist Jeanette
Thurber, he was invited to America in 1892, shortly after his
fiftieth birthday. She offered him the directorship of the
National Conservatory of Music in New York, with the stipulation
that he help develop a new style of serious art music that
expressed
American nationalism—an especially apt request, given Dvořák’s
own role in shaping a distinctly Czech musical voice in Europe.
Despite suffering from agoraphobia, the reasons that led him to
accept this position are varied and speculative. One factor,
however, was undoubtedly Thurber’s
extraordinary offer of a salary no less than twenty-five times
what he earned in Prague, along with travel expenses for his
entire family. With six children to provide for, his wife
ultimately convinced him to accept the opportunity. Dvořák
remained in the United States for three years (1892–1895),
during which he composed some of his most beloved works,
including the Symphony No. 9 (“From
the New World”), the String Quartet in F major (“American”),
the String Quartet in E-flat major, the
Sonatina
for Violin and Piano, and the Cello Concerto in B minor.
Throughout his tenure, the urban environment of New York brought
Dvořák much anxiety, often driving him to seek relief in the
countryside. In the summer of 1893, during a holiday in
Spillville, Iowa—a Bohemian settlement—he found both the
familiarity of home and the restorative power of nature. After
the stress of his first year in New York, he thoroughly enjoyed
the rural bliss of the town, which proved deeply stimulating for
his creativity.
Dvořák’s
String Quartet in F major, Op. 96 (“American”)
emerged from his creative consciousness in a mere three days and
was completed in less than two weeks. Set in the key of F
major—long associated with the pastoral since the Baroque
era—the work exudes his joy at being immersed once again in
nature. He even remarked that Spillville was the first time he
had heard birdsong after months in the
“concrete
jungle.”
The
work opens with a murmuring texture before a bucolic, pentatonic
melody emerges in the viola—Dvořák’s
primary instrument. This theme bears traces of Native American
and African American musical idioms, the very music he was
enjoying, studying, and absorbing during his time in the United
States. The second theme offers a more flowing, lyrical
contrast, while the brief development incorporates fugal
writing, revealing Dvořák’s
roots in European musical training.
The
extraordinary slow movement is imbued with a melancholic spirit.
Its melodies are redolently Schubertian—songful and of
“heavenly
lengths.” After more passionate writing in the violins, the
cello brings the movement to a close with a quiet, almost
funereal lament.
While composing the third movement, Dvořák is said to have
become fascinated with the birdsong of what was long thought to
be a scarlet tanager (though this has since been disputed). He
incorporates this distinctly American bird into the first violin
part. The Trio provides contrast, offering a lighter, more
dance-like character.
A
celebratory Finale follows, pulsating with the relief and
cheerfulness of being in nature. The movement seems to buzz with
the sounds of the natural world. A central section echoes the
hymn-like music of the local church that Dvořák likely heard on
Sundays, where he and his wife were active participants, while
also recalling the lyrical character of the slow movement.
Dvořák later wrote:
“When
I wrote this quartet in the Czech community of Spillville in
1893, I wanted to write something that was very melodious and
straightforward, and dear Papa Haydn kept appearing before my
eyes, and that is why it all turned out so simply. And it is
good that it did.”
Post-Concert Chinese Press:
The Shanghai Quartet at NEC’s Jordan Hall,
April 10, 2026
上海四重奏音樂會後新聞稿
中華表演藝術基金會第37屆音樂季第4場音樂會,於
4月10日(週五)晚上八時,邀請上海四重奏
(The Shanghai Quartet)
重返新英格蘭音樂學院的喬丹音樂廳 (Jordan Hall),
舉辦慶祝40週年的音樂會。
音樂會門票分為$60
(貴賓保留區、可預先指定座位)及$40(不對號自由入座)兩種, 學生票$20 (不對號自由座區) 。六歲以下兒 童請勿入場 。網站購票無手續費 。 $60: VIP
Reserved Seats
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Children under 6 not admitted. 提供免費學生票
(14歲以上, 每人一張) 請上贈票網頁索票, 送完為止。 Limited
free tickets available for students, 1 per request for age 14 and up.
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Email:
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中華表演藝術基金會
Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
Lincoln, Massachusetts
updated 2026