Superstar violinist Siqing Lu returns for the Hotchkiss Philharmonic season opening on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. in Katherine M. Elfers Hall, Esther Eastman Music Center.
Lu will perform Max Bruch’s beloved Violin Concerto No.1 in G Minor. The exciting program will also feature Mascagni’s Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, conducted by the Philharmonic's Artistic Director Fabio Witkowski.
This concert is free and open to the public; no ticket reservations are necessary. Seating is first-come, first-served.
Siqing Lu, Violin
Siqing Lu is one of the foremost and influential Chinese violinists today. As the first Asian violinist to win the esteemed International Paganini Violin Competition, Lu performs regularly worldwide with major orchestras and leading conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with the China Trio which he founded in 2011 on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
Highlights of recent years include being honored as artistic ambassador of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, as well as being appointed the first Chinese soloist-in-residence of MSO for the 2019-2020 season, and performances as guest soloist with the NCPA Orchestra at the Abu Dhabi Music Festival, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra at the Bangkok International Dance and Music Festival, the China National Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, as well as the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra on their first-ever South American tour. In addition, Lu’s acclaimed recital series, The Legend of Magic Bow: Siqing Lu Violin Recital, has taken him to more than a hundred cities throughout China and around the world.
Lu is the artistic director of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) May Festival in Beijing, and the founder/Artistic Director of the Siqing Lu Shenzhen Futian International String Festival. Lu also serves regularly on the jury of international competitions such as the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition and the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition.
Lu has more than a dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name for labels such as Philips, Naxos, Marco Polo, BIS and NCPA Classics. His five recordings of “The Butterfly Lovers” Violin Concerto have sold millions of copies worldwide. His 2018 recording of “Beauty of the Violin” consisting of the Mendelssohn, Bruch and Tan Dun's Violin Concertos with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was released globally by Australia’s ABC Classics to critical acclaim, and soon became the number one CD album on the Australia’s top 20 classical music album chart.
Lu appears regularly with orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, the NCPA Orchestra, and China Philharmonic Orchestra. He has received numerous honors for his outstanding artistic achievements and social contributions, including New Jersey’s Outstanding Achievement in Arts Award for Asian, California Senate Honorary Certificate, and the Montblanc Outstanding Artist Award. The City of Millbrae, CA passed a legislation to have Sept. 16, 2006 proclaimed “Siqing Lu Day” in his honor.
Lu was born in 1969 in Qingdao, China. He began studying the violin at the age of 4. Lu became the youngest student ever to be admitted by the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing at the age of 8 as a special student and studied with Professor Zhenshan Wang. At the age of 11, Lord Yehudi Menuhin hand-picked him to study at The Yehudi Menuhin School in London. In 1984, he returned to China for advanced studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Five years later, he became a scholarship student at the Juilliard School and studied with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. In 2021, Lu became the president of the Yehudi Menuhin School Qingdao, a sister school to the Yehudi Menuhin School in the UK.
Lu performs on the 1734 Ex Ricci Guarneri del Gesu violin, generously provided by an anonymous arts patron.
Fabio Witkowski, Conductor
Fabio Witkowski is the artistic director and founder of The Hotchkiss Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the holder of the Joanne Sohrweide Music Teaching Chair and is the head of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Hotchkiss. Witkowski has appeared with the São Bernardo Philharmonic, Orchestra di Camera di Firenze, Santo André Symphony, Hartford Symphony, and Orchestra Toscana Classica, among others.
As a pianist and chamber musician, he has a busy concert schedule in Europe, Asia, Brazil, and the USA. He has collaborated with the Fine Arts Quartet, Guarneri String Quartet, Emerson String Quartet, and Amerigo Trio. He also performs regularly with his wife, pianist Gisele Witkowski, as the Witkowski Piano Duo. He is the director of the Hotchkiss Summer Piano Portals. He is a frequent guest performer and teacher in several music festivals and competitions, including the Wintergreen Performing Arts Festival, the Londrina, Ourinhos, and Belém Music Festivals in Brazil, the Maria Herrero Competition, Granada Music Festival, and Spanish Composers International Piano Competition in Spain, the The MozArte International Piano Competition in Aachen and Villa Musica and Mendelssohn Festivals in Germany.
The Hotchkiss Philharmonic
The Hotchkiss Philharmonic Orchestra was established in 2018 through the generosity of Barbara Walsh Hostetter '77 and her husband, Amos. The orchestra combines a group of outstanding professional musicians with talented Hotchkiss music students, giving those students the unique opportunity to work and perform alongside world-class artists. Offering free admission to all of its concerts, the orchestra invites the community to Katherine M. Elfers Hall for a season of exciting symphonic music.