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The China National Symphony Orchestra (CNSO), located in Beijing, is China’s national orchestra. According to its website, it is one of the most outstanding professional orchestras in China. It was originally founded as the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China by the government in 1956, and Delun Li was the first conductor and artistic director of the CNSO. Currently, Xia Guan is the orchestra’s executive director. The orchestra’s artistic director and principal conductor is En Shao, and Xincao Li is the resident conductor.

Funding and First Concert
Li Delun conducted the first concert in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mozart … in Beijing after the founding of the orchestra. On October 1st 1959, the concert of Beethoven No.9 was performed by the orchestra in Beijing, and all the musicians were Chinese. In 1996, the Central Philharmonic was restructured and renamed the CNSO. At that time, the CNSO not only played much western classical music such as Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, but it also introduced lots of works such as Yellow River Cantata by Chinese composers.

First Director
According to ChinaCulture website, the CNSO’s first director, Delun Li, born in 1917, was a famous musician and conductor in China. He graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory in 1943, and he studied in the Moscow Conservatory from 1953 to 1957. He conducted over twenty orchestras throughout the former USSR. In the fall of 1957, he returned to China to be Conductor and Artistic Director of the CNSO. Delun Li, as a guest conductor, toured Spain, Germany, Canada, and USA… He introduced many Chinese composers’ works abroad, for example, The Yellow River Cantata and Song of Mountain Forest. He was awarded the Liszt Memory Medal by the Ministry of Culture and Education of Hungary in 1986, and in 1997, he was awarded the National Medal of Friendship by President Yeltsin of Russia.

Beijing Concert Hall
The Beijing Concert Hall was founded as the Center Cinema in 1927. It was rebuilt for the CNSO in 1960 on the Beixinhuajie in Xicheng District which is one the south of Liubukou. The Beijing Concert Hall can accommodate an audience of up to 1024 people.

Staff
Currently, Xia Guan, a famous Composer, is the director of the CNSO. He was born in Henan Province. He graduated from the Department of Composition of the China Central Conservatory of Music and played the violin and erhu. Before being the director of the CNSO, he was the director of the Opera Company at the China Opera and Dance Drama Theatre. Also, he was vice director of the China Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble. He has composed a number of songs which leave a deep impression on the audience. His operatic symphony Mulan Psalm was first performed in Beijing in 2004 and at the Lincoln Center in New York in 2005. According to the New York Times, the China National Symphony Orchestra was a solid, energetic and meticulously drilled ensemble and the excellent performance by the orchestra won the audience. They were given prolonged applause. “One year later it was the first Chinese opera to be conducted by a foreign conductor, Michael Helmrath, to be played by a foreign orchestra- the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra and to be sung by foreign artists in Chinese”. Guan’s main compositions include: Fantasies Symphoniques: Farewell My Concubine (2005), the Chinese opera Sorrowful Morning, and Mulan Psalm.

Other staff members include the famous conductor Michel Plasson who was nominated as the Principal Conductor of the CNSO in March 2010. Tang Muhai is the laureate conductor. Xincao Li is the principal resident conductor, Shao En is the principal guest conductor, Xieyang Chen is the guest conductor, and Yunzhi Liu is the concertmaster.

Diplomatic Occasion (2011)
The CNSO has performed in many important diplomatic occasions because of its superb performances.


 * 1) In April 2011, the CNSO performed for Jintao Hu (Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China), Russian President Medvedev, and others leaders who attended the third BRICs leaders meeting.
 * 2) In April 2011, the CNSO performed for the leaders who were at Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2011.
 * 3) On August 18th 2011, the CNSO performed for the US Vice President Joe Biden, the Chinese Vice President Jinping Xi, and others government officials in the Great Hall of the People.
 * 4) On August 26th 2011, the CNSO performed for the ambassadors from different countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.