The National Youth Orchestra of China (NYO-China) was founded in 2016 with the goal of providing China’s finest young musicians access to world-class education and performance opportunities, in so doing allowing them to serve as ambassadors for their country and generation on a global stage.

 

 

Each year since, NYO-China has brought together exceptional young students for a training residency with faculty drawn from the first desks of top tier orchestras around the world. After two weeks of intensive rehearsal, members embark on a concert tour visiting premier international venues alongside a world-renowned conductor and soloist.

 

 

The French conductor Ludovic Morlot has been Music Director of the Seattle Symphony since 2011. During the 2018/19 season they have continued on their incredible musical journey, focusing particularly on the music of Debussy, and works by composers he influenced or that influenced him.

 

 

Amongst others, newly commissioned works this season have included Caroline Shaw’s Piano Concerto and the US premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s At Swim-Two-Birds.

 

The orchestra have many successful recordings, which have won five Grammy Awards. A box set of music by Dutilleux was recently released on their own label, Seattle Symphony Media, to mark the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

 

ince his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Mr. Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature.

 

 

A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. To date he has at his command more than 80 concertos, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century, many commissioned for him.