The WKO Looking Back at a Successful Chinese Tour (September 2017)
Before the concert in Wuxi, Poly Grand Theatre
After fifteen days, eleven concerts, and more than 21,000 kilometers traveled, the Württembergisches Kammerorchester (WKO) Heilbronn and its artistic director Ruben Gazarian have returned to Heilbronn.
Playing works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky, the WKO was a guest in eleven cultural centers such as Shanghai, Wuxi or Nanjing in the east of China, functioning as an ambassador of the city of Heilbronn, Germany, and Europe. In the course of its tour, the orchestra with its concertmaster Zohar Lerner as a soloist appeared in some of the most impressive newly built concert halls in China, such as the Nanjing Poly Grand Theatre, one of the last building projects of the recently deceased architect Zaha Hadid.
“Such an extended tour through China is something extraordinary. I am truly happy for the fact that the WKO’s general manager, Madeleine Landlinger, successfully sealed the deal for this large foreign tour. It is wonderful to see how enthusiastic the mostly young Chinese audiences are about “European” music. And if one has the privilege of performing Mozart’s “Kleine Nachtmusik,” Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in D minor, or Tchaikovsky’s Serenade under such circumstances, then real moments of bliss will occur – both to the audience and to us musicians“, concludes Ruben Gazarian.