Shanghai Quartet performs in Beijing Music Festival

Shanghai Quartet, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, performed with Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sun Yifan on Oct 2, as part of the ongoing Beijing Music Festival.

Music pieces, including Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge Op 133 and John Adams' Absolute Jest, were staged.

The quartet was formed in 1983 by Weigang Li and his brother, Honggang Li. In 1984, the quartet won the second prize at the Portsmouth International Quartet Competition. They made their debut in New York in 1987 and since then, all members of the quartet were living in the United States and touring throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

In 2019, the quartet members joined the Tianjin Juilliard School, the first overseas campus of New York's Juilliard School, as resident faculty members, and relocated to China to concentrate on educating the next generation of musicians, as well as performing in the country.

One of the highlights of the concert in Beijing was the young conductor, 29-year-old Sun, who rose to fame after stepping in for established conductor Yu Long and played with Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in July on Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold).