PROGRAMME

Mussorgsky Night on the Bare Mountain
Coates Knightsbridge March
Barber Adagio for Strings
Grieg In the Hall of the Mountain King
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Vaughan Williams The Wasps Overture
Rodgrigo Concierto de Aranjuez
Khachaturian Sabre Dance
Elgar Nimrod
Ravel Bolero

BIOGRAPHY - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Founded in 1946 by Sir Thomas Beecham, with his vision of bringing world-class performances of the greatest music written to the length of the country, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra continues to maintain Beecham's legacy by offering audiences in the UK and abroad the highest possible standards of music-making, accompanied by some of the most acclaimed artists of the day. Read More...

BIOGRAPHY - Xuefei Yang

The internationally acclaimed guitarist Xuefei Yang was the first guitarist in China to enter a music school and graduate from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing with a BA degree and the first guitarist from her country to study classical guitar in the west.

Born in Beijing, Fei began playing the guitar at the age of seven, taking formal tuition at ten from Chen Zhi. Soon after, she made her first public appearance at the First China International Guitar Festival. Immediately she gained such acclaim that the Spanish Ambassador in China presented her with a handmade concert guitar. During her school years, she played extensively in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Spain and Australia and gave concert tours in Taiwan, Japan and Portugal.

When playing in Tokyo, she was given a special award by the Guitar Alliance of Japan and the celebrated Japanese luthier Masaru Kohno presented her with one of his concert guitars. The composer Rodrigo attended her debut concert in Madrid when she was fourteen and in 1995, when John Williams came to Beijing, he was so impressed with her playing that he gave two of his own Smallman guitars to her Conservatory especially for her and other top students to play. The first Chinese student ever to receive an international scholarship from the Associated Board of The Royal Schools of Music, Fei came to England for her postgraduate study at The Royal Academy of Music.

She has been in England since 2000 and has studied with Michael Lewin, John Mills and Timothy Walker at the Royal Academy of Music (from where she graduated with distinction). She won the Dorothy Grinstead Prize and received the Principal's prize for exceptional all-round studentship achieving a Recital Diploma. Fei was awarded the Dip.RAM - the highest performance award conferred by the Royal Academy. In 2005, her outstanding achievements helped her earn the "Associate" title granted by the Academy.

Fei has given concerts throughout the UK, Europe, Asia and North America. Her success has led her to be invited to many prestigious venues including the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London as well as the Philharmonie Berlin, Musikhalle Hamburg, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Lincoln Center New York and the Herbst Theatre San Francisco. In Asia she has appeared at the National Concert Hall Taipei, Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Center, Esplanade Singapore, Guangzhou XingHai Concert Hall and the Beijing Concert Hall. In 2003 she performed 54 concerts for the "Night of the Proms" Tour, appearing in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany to an estimated total audience of over 800,000. Last season Fei performed concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic and Macao Orchestras. Future concerts include the Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Fei performs recitals in the UK, Europe Asia and North America.

Her second CD album 'Si Ji', inspired by music from her homeland, was released in 2005 by GSP. Later that year she signed an exclusive international contract with EMI Classics and her debut album "Romance de Amor" was released in April 2006, reaching gold disc status in Hong Kong. Fei has also appeared on numerous radio and television programmes including BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour and China Central Television, who recently made a biographical documentary on Fei for their classical musician series.