The China National Symphony Orchestra has officially removed Tang Muhai
as its artistic director, more than six months after the 53-year old maestro
angrily left Beijing.
According to sources in the orchestra, the management informed the players earlier this month that it would not be entering into any contract with Tang Muhai, who stormed out last August after a bitter argument with the orchestra's chief executive officer, Yu Songlin, over programming for the new season and budgetary matters. Tang was quoted by an official Beijing newspaper as saying, "I shall not return as long as Yu Songlin is around."
Tang, a former protégé of Herbert von Karajan, won a Grammy Award earlier this year for a recording of Christopher Rouse's Concert de Gaudí .
Also discharged was the orchestra's deputy chief executive, Qian Cheng, a Tang supporter who manages the two largest concert halls in Beijing as well as one in Nanjing. One of Qian's venues, Beijing Concert Hall near Tiananmen Square, was ordered to close down due to what officials described as a violation of fire regulations.
But the news for the orchestra is not all bad. Eleven section principals from Europe have been invited to coach the group for two weeks through intensive sectional and instrumental training, leading to a joint concert on 27 April at the Century Theater under the baton of the orchestra's founder, conductor Chen Zuohuang. The concert, which includes Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Brahms' Fourth Symphony, will be the first for Chen since he resigned two years ago after more than 30 key players left for the new rival China Philharmonic.
Meanwhile, the orchestra is completing the season under resident conductor Li Xincao.
Later this spring, the ensemble will play such large orchestral showpieces
as Strauss' Ein Heldenleben and Holst's The Planets and close its
season with Mahler's Third Symphony. These colossal works, said the young
maestro, would serve to prepare the orchestra for its forthcoming tours to
Japan, Australia and Europe.
