"The future of classical music is in China", the renowned conductor Lorin Maazel once said. That claim was picked up by Gramophone and the Washington Post, praising the growth of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Chinese music students. In about three decades, a few hundred classical music concerts per year has become the norm in Shanghai. The main concertgoers, thirty-somethings, aren't just spending their time at night clubs.
When it comes to the best places to see classical music in Shanghai, we have both retro-style music institutions and modern cultural hubs to choose from.
Shanghai Oriental Art Center
The shiny butterfly orchid of Pudong cost a staggering 1.1 billion rmb to build back in the early 2000s. It was renovated in 2018 and currently is the most iconic classical music center in Pudong, within a few minutes walk of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. In 2017, in less than a month, both the Wiener Symphoniker and the Berliner Symphoniker sold the place out. The former played four nights in a row, presenting the complete Beethoven cycle of nine symphonies for the first time in Shanghai. The performances at SHOAC are second only to the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing in terms of number and popularity.
Its five "petals," designed by French architect Paul Andreu, hold the main entrance, the concert hall (1,953 seats), the opera hall (1,015 seats), the performance hall, and the exhibition hall. The whole building takes up nearly 40,000 sqm in total, and features a gallery of antique music boxes, as well as a French restaurant and a cafe. Last year, they teamed up with their previous partner HARMAN to remodel the Concert Hall. It now has a state-of-the-art networked system of JBL, Crown, Studer and BSS sound systems. Like a combination of Shanghai Symphony Hall and the Shanghai Grand Theatre, SHOAC also regularly organizes their own shows, lectures, and has discounted tickets for students and free admission days. Most of the tickets cost around 80rmb to 580rmb. Their program is available in English on SHOAC’s official website.
