Macao Orchestra joins hands with Sayaka Shoji to present Shakespeare’s World Concert

Lü Jia, Music Director and Principal Conductor of Macao Orchestra of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, will collaborate with Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji in the concert Shakespeare’s World –Lü Jia and Sayaka next Friday, 29 April, at 8pm, at the Macao Tower Auditorium, presenting Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Tickets are now available through the Macau Ticketing Network. In Gramophone Magazine, Sayaka Shoji is described as “a formidable musician, able to draw on huge reserves of stamina and the unflinching equal of anything thrown at her”. She took the First Prize of the 1999 Paganini Competition at the age of 16, and was the first Japanese musician and the youngest winner of this prize. She is also one of the most internationally renowned violin sensations, she has performed with a number of leading orchestras throughout the world, including the BBC Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra, among others. In January 2016, Sayaka Shoji received the prestigious Mainichi Art Award. In this concert, Sayaka Shoji will have the debut performance with the Macao Orchestra to perform Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, which was created at the same period with Prokofiev’s well-known ballet Romeo and Juliet, a namesake adaptation from Shakespeare’s drama. This concerto mirrors the adaptation in numerous passages. The programme of the concert also features with Berlioz’s King Lear Overture, based on an adaptation from Shakespeare's King Lear, using musical instruments like double bass and obes to play out the tragedy of main character. The concert concludes with Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, which was dedicated to Schumann’s wife Clara as a birthday present. This piece of work can be regarded as a perfect demonstration of romanticism. Tickets for Shakespeare’s World – Lü Jia and Sayaka are priced at MOP200, MOP150 and MOP100, with various discount plans available. Ticketing hotline: 2855 5555. For more details and programme enquiries, please visit the Orchestra webpage at www.icm.gov.mo/om or contact OM through tel no. 2853 0782 during office hours.