Astonishing guitarist joins NZSO for Spanish tour

25 July 2011

Astonishing guitarist joins NZSO for Spanish tour

An astonishing young guitarist will join the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to perform one of classical music’s greatest hits in the NZSO’s most colourful tour of the year.

Xuefei Yang will play the twentieth-century Spanish classic Concierto de Aranjuez on the NZSO Sketches of Spain tour of Wellington, Napier, Hamilton and Auckland, presented in association with The New Zealand Listener from 26 August.

Yang was the first guitarist ever to enter a music school in her native China, and the first Chinese guitar virtuoso to launch an international career.

Hailed even as a teenager, Gramophone magazine named Yang the guitar world’s newest star. She is acclaimed for her “frightening” technical brilliance but also the gentleness of her finger work.

The Concierto de Aranjuez has become Yang’s international calling card after she mastered it aged just 16. It was the first orchestral work to be written for the guitar and it shot composer Joaquin Rodrigo to fame when it premiered in 1939.

The concerto has since been interpreted by a host of famous musicians including jazz legends Miles Davis and Chick Corea, and even appeared in the 1996 brass band movie Brassed Off. Inspired by the palace gardens at Aranjuez near Madrid, it evokes birdsong, fragrant flowers and the play of fountains.

Sketches of Spain also features other orchestral pieces famous for their sun-drenched brightness, including Debussy’s Iberia and Three Dances from the Spanish ballet, The Three Cornered Hat.

Sketches of Spain will be led by the impressive young German conductor Christoph König, known for the energy and zest of his performances. Principal Conductor of Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfonica do Porto Casa da Musica, this is his debut tour with the NZSO.

Xuefei Yang will sign copies of her album Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez (EMI Classics) at each concert interval.

Xuefei Yang on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByS62T7lvX0

ENDS

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