Ge Gan-Ru: Shanghai Reminiscences & Butterfly Overture

Featuring

Tsung Yeh
Maya Iwabuchi
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Gan-Ru Ge

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Composition History

Butterfly Overture is Ge Gan-ru's symphonic tribute to his beloved teacher and mentor, Chen Gang, who created "The Butterfly Lovers," a popular classical composition.

Recording & Production

This album features world premiere recordings of both Shanghai Reminiscences and Butterfly Overture.

Performer Biography

Tsung Yeh, the conductor, holds a unique historical position as the first conductor to lead both a Western symphony orchestra and a major Chinese instrument symphony orchestra.

Composer Biography

Ge Gan-ru, the composer, secretly took violin lessons as a child, with his parents muting his sound to avoid attention in 1950s China.

Composer Biography

During the Cultural Revolution, Ge Gan-ru was sent to a labor camp to plant rice, where he met his future wife and received music lessons from a former concertmaster.

Composition History

Shanghai Reminiscences was commissioned by the Shanghai Philharmonic to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the PRC's founding and Shanghai's hosting of the 2010 World Expo.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Ge Gan-ru's Shanghai Reminiscences is a musical evocation of his childhood sonic memories of old Shanghai, a dream he had after years of homesickness.