Listening to the melody of Vivaldi in front of the authentic Botticelli, the "Evening Peak Concert" made its debut at the Botticelli | Vivaldi | Concert Hall
At 18:30 on June 16th, Yang Li, who had just finished work, walked towards the Dongyi Art Museum located on the Bund with an umbrella. As soon as he sat down, the melody of "Spring" in Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" sounded on the strings, and the performers were surrounded by Porticilli's paintings from the Uffizi Art Museum in Italy.
On a Friday evening with light rain, avoiding the evening rush hour, listening to the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra's musicians perform a unique concert, and then strolling through the popular exhibition "Botticelli and the Renaissance" became Yang Li's "super value" choice: "It's really a unique experience, Vivaldi's music and Botticelli's paintings complement each other." No wonder, 120 tickets quickly sold out after opening. For this collaboration, the closing time of Dongyi Art Museum has been extended from 18:00 to 21:30.
The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has held more than 20 "Evening Peak Concerts", the first of its kind in China, since 2019. The considerate arrangement of the concert during the evening rush hour focuses on "small and beautiful", with "short" duration and "light" repertoire. This is the first time that the evening peak concert has left the concert hall and arrived at the art museum, achieving cross-border linkage. In the future, the evening peak concert will attempt to collaborate with more new entertainment spaces.
Xie Dingwei, Executive Director of Dongyi Art Museum, is a classical music enthusiast who often goes to music halls to listen to symphonies. Listening to a concert at the art museum, he had a very wonderful feeling. "Human vision and hearing are like two sides of a coin. I have found that people who enjoy classical painting often also enjoy classical music, and the audience overlap is very high. So far, this exhibition has received about 30000 visitors, and we hope to bring a richer experience through more cross-border activities."
As Italian artists, Vivaldi and Botticelli's "Spring" incorporate praise for nature and love for life into their works. Botticelli's masterpiece "Spring" depicts a vibrant and warm natural landscape. Over 200 years later, Baroque musician Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" concerto emerged, becoming one of the most well-known works in music history. Among them, the melody of "Spring" is even more well-known.
This is the first time that violinist Wang Junhao from the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has performed at an art museum. "Unexpectedly, the echo effect of the art museum space is very good. There is no need to pull it too hard, and the audience can hear the subtle resonance of the strings." For this evening peak concert, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra specially rented a six foot triangular piano, which can just be installed in the elevator of the Bund No.1.
The threshold for classical music is high, and in order to attract audiences to enter the concert hall, it is necessary to lower the threshold from all aspects. For busy modern people, consuming the entire evening of a concert is one of the barriers. The evening peak concert with shorter duration and lighter repertoire has attracted many new audiences.
The evening peak concert is not only an exploration of the viewing style, but also an exploration of the performance style of the orchestra. At the concert, the performers creatively adopted a small-scale arrangement, using four violins to express different personalities, highlighting the struggle between darkness and light, and presenting the audience with a different "Four Seasons" in the form of a "music theater.".
Lu Jing, Brand Director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, said, "At the beginning of the establishment of the Evening Peak Concert, it was hoped to adapt to the tense lifestyle of urbanites and attract white-collar workers to enter the concert hall. Over twenty performances were performed at the Shanghai Symphony Concert Hall, and many white-collar workers working nearby became loyal audiences. Now we hope to extend the reach of the Evening Peak Concert to various corners of the city and serve more citizens."
