This album features world première recordings of Xia Guan's Symphony No. 2 'Hope', 'Gazing at the Stars', and 'Sorrowful Dawn - Symphonic Ballade'.
Performer Biography
En Shao, the conductor, started playing piano at age four and violin at age five, and by eighteen was working as a composer, pianist, and percussionist.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Xia Guan's Symphony No. 2 'Hope' reflects on the coexistence of agony and hope, good and evil, and the importance of struggle and persistence for mankind's progress.
Performer Biography
The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra won a GRAMMY® Award in 1993 for its recording of the main title music for the TV series 'Beauty and the Beast'.
Composer Biography
Xia Guan is highly regarded for both concert music and TV soundtracks, including three successful Chinese television series, most notably 'I Love My Family'.
Composition History
The 'Symphonic Ballade' draws on the music of Xia Guan's opera 'Sorrowful Dawn', which tells the story of China's War of Liberation after World War Two.
Composer Biography
Xia Guan, the composer, graduated from the China Central Conservatory of Music in 1985 and has won awards from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Wiener Staatsoper.
