Lunar New Year
with the Minnesota OrchestraSat Feb 17, 2024
Orchestra Hall
The Minnesota Orchestra marks Lunar New Year, the Year of the Dragon, a two-week-long festival that encourages family and friends to gather together with a performance featuring music that honors family traditions and themes of unity and health.
A Few Things to Know
- Did you know: the timing of Lunar New Year changes every year because it is based on the lunar calendar, which typically falls about 20-50 days behind the Gregorian calendar.
- For the third consecutive year, Principal Bassoon Fei Xie serves as the artistic consultant for the Lunar New Year celebration. Conductor Junping Qian will also lead the program for the third straight year.
- In China, after it turns midnight on the first day of the Chinese New Year, people first give traditional greetings to their parents or the eldest members of their house, followed then by their siblings.
The Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra, now in its second century, ranks among America’s top symphonic ensembles, with a distinguished history of acclaimed performances in its home state and around the world; award-winning recordings, broadcasts and educational engagement programs; and a commitment to intentionally build concert programs to feature more works by composers of color, exploring music both contemporary and historic. This fall, Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård begins his tenure as music director.
Conductor Junping Qian, having just completed his second year as the Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, also serves as a Visiting Faculty member at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
His recent engagements, aside from his busy schedule with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, notably, include conducting the Covid-19 recovery rehearsal camp of Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, a China Tour with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Teatro del Giglio Lucca, his South American debut with Orchestra SODRE in Montevideo, Uruguay, his North American professional debut with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, an open-air summer concert in “Summer Classics” Festival Sibiu and re-invitations from Toronto, Macau, Kunming, Xi’An, Bucharest, Iasi, and Tirgus Mures. He served as the Strategic Advisor and Residential Artist of the Shanghai & Royal College of Music London Joint Institute from 2018 to 2020.
Xie joined the Minnesota Orchestra as principal bassoon at the beginning of the 2017-18 season after serving as principal bassoonist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra—an ensemble he first joined as second bassoonist in 2008. When he won the principal role in 2012, Xie became the first Chinese-born bassoonist to hold such a position in a major American symphony orchestra. He was previously a member of the Houston Grand Opera, principal bassoonist of the Mansfield Symphony in Ohio, and has appeared as guest principal bassoonist with orchestras such as Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
- Armless & Bariatric Chairs
- Assistive Listening Devices
- Noise-Cancelling Headphones
- Service Animals
- Wheelchair & Accessible Seating
Additional services are available upon request.