“The Philadelphia Orchestra will, indeed, touch down June 2 at Mongolia’s Genghis Khan International Airport as part of its Asian tour, which starts Tuesday,” writes David Patrick Stearns in Friday’s (5/19) Philadelphia Inquirer. “But in the midst of that country’s bankruptcy crisis, only about one-fifth of the group—18 musicians—will take the Mongolian leg of [the] tour.… The anchor of the May 23-June 8 tour of China, Mongolia, and South Korea is still Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, where the orchestra will play a televised Beethoven Symphony No. 9 on May 31.… The Philadelphians are now in their second five-year agreement that promises annual concerts there. In Shanghai, the orchestra will begin two five-year agreements that will make a place for the musicians at the Oriental Art Center and with the media company Shanghai Media Group, which will have the orchestra in a semi-outdoor performing area near Shanghai’s Disneyland.… Gone, however, is the annual visit to Macau…. Despite impending austerity measures, the Mongolian government and the U.S. State Department came up with enough money to bring in a smaller Philadelphia Orchestra contingent for a June 2-4 series of concerts and master classes.”
Posted May 22, 2017
