The city's new concert hall has opened to cheers for its acoustics and architecture. Guest conductor Gustavo Dudamel is a big fan, Zhang Kun reports in Shanghai.

Aconcert hall is like an instrument for an orchestra, Gustavo Dudamel said after leading the debut performance at the new music hall of the Shanghai Symphony last month with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

It was the first foreign orchestra to perform at the new music hall, which opened on Sept 6.

The 33-year-old conductor from Venezuela compares the new hall to a Stradivarius violin. Having such a wonderful concert hall of its own, the orchestra will be able to "develop a sound, a personality, a soul", he says.

Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, who designed the Shanghai Symphony Music Hall jointly with acclaimed architect Arata Isozaki, also compared the hall to a music instrument, at an earlier soft opening.

"We were not building a house, but making a musical instrument," he says. Toyota promised audiences that "every seat is a golden seat" in the main concert hall for 1,200 people and chamber hall for 400 others.

In order to block out the vibrations and noises from Metro Line 10, which lies within 6 meters, Toyota and Isozaki built the concert hall on 300 base isolators. Known as China's first "floating building", the concert hall actually sits on giant steel springs - the first time the technology has been used in the country.

Isozaki designed two-thirds of the hall's construction below ground level, so that the building is no more than 18 meters at its highest, fitting naturally amid the surrounding buildings and residential compounds dating to the early 20th-century French Concession period.

Youthful maestro

This is the six or seventh time the youthful Dudamel has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the leading orchestras in the world. He was principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony from 2007 to 2012, and has been music director of Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2007 and that of the Orquesta Sinfonica Simon Bolivar in his home country since 1999. He is also a brand ambassador for Swiss luxury watch maker Rolex.

Once he was younger than most of his surrounding players, "but that is changing now", he says.

The combination of experienced and young people, and the interactions between them, gives the orchestra a unique sound, the conductor says, with his signature curly hair and easy charm.

Dudamel participated in El Sistema since childhood. The famous musical education program has given opportunities to "people who are excluded from the society, to be part of the society through art", he says, proud of the way children in need can enrich their lives with the arts. El Sistema, founded by Jose Antonio Abreu in 1975, has been like "the flag or national symbol" of Venezuela, Dudamel says proudly.

Dudamel started with El Sistema studying the violin, and he turned to conducting when he was 14. He became the artistic director of Orquesta Sinf��nica Sim��n Bol��var at the age of 18.

"I started to play with them when I was 9 or 10 - 23 years later we are still together," Dudamel says of the orchestra that has become a family for him. "They are my brothers and my sisters. Some of them are my sons and my daughters by now."

In North America, Dudamel has worked with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for six seasons. He made his debut with LA Philharmonic soon after he won the Gustav Mahler Conducting Prize in 2005. The concert at Hollywood Bowl was watched by 7,000 people. "A moment like that always stays in your heart," Dudamel says.

Although classical music has a well-established canon, the Venezuelan believes it is important to avoid routine, and to always play a piece like it is the first time.

"It's not to be humble in an acting way, but really to be honest in this humble position as an artist," he says of the way he puts himself in front of masterpieces created by geniuses like Sibelius, Beethoven, Bach and Shostakovich. "We are recreating the masterpiece through our instruments."

"Every note is a universe," he says, quoting Mahler. "The universe is infinite, expanding and transforming everything, all the time. That's the way music is to me.

"When I sit in front of a piece, I try to think in the way the composer was thinking, also how I can achieve my interpretation to arrive a little closer to the level, where we never arrived before, to the way of thinking of the composer."

Long history

While the concert hall is new, the resident Shanghai Symphony Orchestra dates back to 1879. It began as the Shanghai Public Band, conducted by French flutist Jean Remusat. The band became known as "the greatest orchestra in the Far East" in the early 20th century.

Now the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra carries on with the mission to "communicate with the world through music", according to director Chen Guangxian.

The first music season in the new hall continues through June 28, with a concert about every three days. Starting with the Vienna Philharmonic, a series of world-famous companies, such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic and North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, will present concerts at the venue.

Contact the writer at zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 10/20/2014 page11)