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The 2003-04 USC Symphony Orchestra season will finish with a flourish April 20 when the orchestra accompanies violinist Xue-Wei as he plays his 17th-century Stradivarius in the Koger Center. Donald Portnoy conducts.
“I have worked with Xue-Wei on several occasions in China, most recently this past summer in Shanghai,” said Portnoy, USC Symphony music director. “He is a world-class artist who always leaves the audience demanding more. Our audiences here in Columbia are in for a rare treat.’
Born in China in 1963, Xue-Wei (pronounced “shway way”) has been described as "one of the outstanding violinists of our time" by Gramophone, a leading international classical music magazine. He appears regularly with most of the major British orchestras and has also performed in most European countries. Although no longer a resident in China, he maintains ties with his home country and tours regularly in the Far East.
Xue-Wei’s musical career accelerated when he became a prizewinner at the 1981 Chinese National Violin Competition, the 1982 Carl Flesch International Violine Competition, and the 1983 Japan International Violin Competition. In 1985, he moved to England to study at the Guildhall School of Music with Yfrah Neaman.
In 1986, Xue-Wei won the Tchaikovsky Silver Medal in Moscow, and two weeks later returned to London to win the First Prize (and all other available prizes including the Sonata Prize and Orchestra and Audience Prize) at the Carl Flesch Competition. In the same year, he was voted the LPO/Pioneer United Kingdom Young Soloist of the Year.
In addition to performing and leading master classes around the world, Xue-Wei is a professor of violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Audience members at the USC performance will travel from the exotic Orient to the Scottish Highlands without leaving the auditorium. Xue-Wei will perform Chen Gang and He Zhan-Hao’s Butterfly Concerto. The program also includes Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, op. 46, and Igor Stravinsky’s version of Firebird Suite.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Koger Center. Tickets are $18 public, $15 senior citizens (age 55 and over) and USC faculty and staff; $8 students. Tickets are available at the Carolina Coliseum box office or by calling 251-2222.
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