The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra · Music Connecting Worlds The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra uses music to communicate, connect and engage with audiences around the world. The symphony believes that music – when expressed in its essence – is an entirely different form of communication – a fourth way for humans to communicate – beyond just the written word, spoken language and body expression. This music communicates in a language that crosses all ethnic, social, cultural and emotional boundaries. As Asia’s oldest orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra brought Western classical music to China. Today, it remains a world-class orchestra which attracts internationally renowned artists while it still retains its Chinese essence: the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is a beacon of culture and arts for the city of Shanghai. Story of Logo   The logo of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra originates from the connection between music and human. The basic graphic component of the logo is circle, which represents perfection, harmony and the diffuse of sound. Upon the circles, there are cut-ins of the notes so that these two elements are integrated. The notched circles means Shanghai's tolerance to diversity. Two circles next to each other vertically comprise the English letter “S” and two “S”s plus an “O”, as a circle could resemble, together make up “SSO”, the abbreviation of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, which embodies the tribute to and heritage of the last edition of the logo. The whole logo is an assembly of humans, just like that of an orchestra, a  connection of single units, as  well as the sense of harmony. The new logo also has a sense of wave, provoking the association of water and river. This is the very paramount characteristic of Shanghai, a metropolis on the west shore of the Pacific.

Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra is a highly professional symphony orchestra developed from the Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. The former of Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra is Shanghai Film Orchestra which was established in 1954 and Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra which was established in 1950, which had both made great contributions to the development of Chinese film and broadcasting industry.  In 1996, Shanghai Film Orchestra and Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra consolidated to form Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra (SBSO) and it made great progress and development leading by the former Music Director Yongyan Hu. The name of the orchestra was officially changed to the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in April of 2004 with famous conductor Zuohuang Chen as its Music Director， adopting the world’s most prevalent system of music seasons. In January of 2008, youthful conductor Liang Zhang has assumed the position of conductor of the orchestra.. In March of 2009, the famous conductor Muhai Tang has taken over as music director of the orchestra. With several years’ efforts, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra has now become one of the very best orchestras in China. The Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra pays a great deal of attention to the improvement of artistic taste and skill. The SPO has been involved in collaborations with quite a few renowned musicians both from home and abroad, such as Xiaotong Huang, Yongyan Hu, Zuohuang Chen, MuHai Tang, Long Yu, Yinling Huang, Lan Shui, Lihua Tan, Liang Zhang, Guoyong Zhang, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Peter-Lukas Graf, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Jessye Norman, Joe Hisaishi, M.G. Mola, Yo-yo Ma, Támás Vásáry, Dun Tan, Lang Lang, Yundi Li, Changyong Liao, Ying Huang, Zhong Xu, and Wei Xue spanning a number of exciting concerts. Besides the symphony concerts, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra has made appearance in operas and ballets to extend its artistic range. The SPO has produced and also performed operas such as Tosca, Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, Tea, The Barber of Siville, and so on. Furthermore, the orchestra has also cooperated with several of the world’s top ballet troupes in Shanghai, such as the Royal Ballet, Ballet de L’Opera National de Paris, Ballet of Opemhaus, Ballet of Maryinsky Theatre, the Australian National Ballet, and the Royal Ballet of Flanders in productions of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Gisele, Nutcracker, Coppelia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cinderella, and so on. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra has made great efforts to broaden and update the style and content for the orchestra performance so as to meet the diverse and growing cultural needs of the audience. The SPO has produced a large range of performance such as concert of Chinese & foreign movies, symphonic concert of traditional Chinese operas(Peking Opera of Tang Concubines, Yue Opera of The Dream of Red Mansions and etc),Multimedia Concert of Chinese Folk songs and so on. The variety of concerts shows the powerful strength of the SPO and also is well popular with the audience. The Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra pays much attention to the composition of Chinese music, especially for symphony works. The SPO not only do the world premiere for the music of different generation of Chinese composers such as Qiming Lv、Shuya Xu、Ganru Ge、Yuan Liu、Qiang Wang、Yi Qin, but also hold several concerts such as Ode of the Red Flag—The Concert of Music Composed by Qiming Lv, The Songful Time River----The Concert of Music Composed by Zhun Huang for Films and TV series, The Martial Arts Trilogy----Tan Dun’s work concert and 2012 Remote Mountain and Nearby Sea—by Composer Jin Fuzai and etc.The SPO spare no effort to promote and spread abroad the Chinese music composition. The Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra has attended many international music festivals and activities. In 2005, it went toSingapore, before touringTaiwanin 2006. Its concerts atChina’s National Grand Theater during the Week of the Organ in 2008 also helped it win extensive recognition. In 2009, the orchestra touredAustraliafor the Friendly Week of “Queensland-Shanghai”. In 2010, it successfully assisted touring concerts inSwitzerland,Slovakia, andHungary. The SPO won wide praise and was acclaimed as one of the Asian orchestras with the greatest potential. Dedicated to symphony promotion, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra has organized a variety of activities including “Neighborhood Concert” and “School Concert”. The Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra is endeavoring to make itself an all-round and widely influential orchestra, offering further contributions to the development and prosperity ofChina’s symphony field.

Established in January, 1955, China National Peking Opera Company (CNPOC) is one of the national ensembles of performance arts directly under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, People's Republic of China. The first President of the theater is the Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang. The theater consists of Group One, Group Two, Group Three, Stage Art Center, the Mei Lanfang Grand Theatre, and People's theater (Opera Movies and TV Shooting and Performing Center). Since its founding, the theater has brought together a large number of outstanding performing artists and playwrights, directors, composers, stage artists, etc., who enjoy a high reputation both at home and abroad, such as the Performing arts master Li Shao-chun, Yuan Shihai, Ye Shenglan, Du Jinfang, Li Hezeng, Zhang Yunxi, Zhang Chunhua, Li Shiji, the famous director A Jia, the esteemed playwright Weng Ouhong, Fan Junhong and so on. With a galaxy of elites, CNPOC has been built into Peking Opera performing art groups of great strength. Over 50 years, the theater has inherited, composed, and staged more than 500 traditional historical dramas of excellence, new historical dramas and modern Peking operas with different themes and genres. Basically, it is possessed of an art spirit of innovation, with expertise in inheriting, borrowing and shaping characters, and it forms a rigorous artistic style with profound ideological content, fresh stage, various schools, and neat lineup. The operas of CNPOC have extensive impacts and wins the audience’s favor, on behalf of the repertoire has “Wild Boar Forest”, “Three Attacks on Zhu Village”, “On the Cross Road”, “Legend of the White Snake”, “Jiujiang River Mouth”, “Sun An’s Angry”, “Xie Yaohuan”, “Lady General Mu Takes Command”, “"Havoc in Heaven”, “The Rive All Red”, Women General of Yang Family”, “The Red Lantern”, “Fighting On the Plains”, “The Red Detachment of Women”, “Chuncao Chuang Tang”, “Butterflies Lingering over Flowers”, “Fright in Han Palace”, “Shouma Royal Official”, “Sister Jiang”, “Turandot”, “Lushui River and Yi Mountain”, “Princess Wencheng”, “Shadow of Willow” etc. During years of artistic creation, and international and domestic performance appraisals, the theater has more than 40 plays and over 100 people winning all sorts of awards. In recent years, National Peking Opera Theatre is always on the list of the domestic significant awards, for example, "Wenhua Award", "Five One Project Award", “the China Peking Opera Festival Gold Award”, "National Fine Stage Arts Project", "Mei Lanfang Gold Award", "Plum Blossom Award" and so on. Peking Opera Company is charged with the important task of cultural exchanges with foreign countries, and constantly sends art troups performing around the world, which have visited 50 countries and regions, five continents, winning a good international reputation. To promote Sino-foreign cultural exchanges, enhance the friendship between Chinese people and the people of the world, it makes a positive contribution. The current President of the National Peking Opera is Song Guanlin, the Vice President and the Secretary of the Party Committee Liu Xiaohua, the Vice President Yin Xiaodong, Vice President and Artistic Director Yu Kuizhi, the Director of the Arts Steering Committee and the Artistic Director Liu Changyu.