This spring, Shenzhen is presenting four programs, including a Chinese pop show and a solo performance by Jazz queen Laura Fygi in its very own Concert Hall.

    Debra Li

    IF you think that concert halls are the exclusive preserve of orchestras, tenors and sopranos, you are wrong. This spring, Shenzhen is presenting four programs, including a Chinese pop show and a solo performance by Jazz queen Laura Fygi in its very own Concert Hall.

    “We offer fans a variety of tasteful music, both modern and classical, instrumental and vocal,” said Xu Xia, artistic director of the venue.

    This Saturday will witness the premier event of the season, a collection of Chinese pop songs sung by four singers — Zhao Peng, Tong Li, Jiafei Jiaer and Lan Lan. Accompanied by Guangzhou-based Perfect Music Orchestra, renowned for the high-fidelity CDs they release, the singers will bring audiences down memory lane. The program includes songs like Jay Chou’s “Chrysanthemum Flower Bed,” Taiwan campus pop “Grandma’s Penghu Bay,” Beatles’ “Yesterday” and Teresa Teng’s love song “The Moon Represents My Heart.”

    On April 9, the English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) will debut at the Shenzhen Concert Hall with Grammy-winning violinist Hilary Hahn playing Mozart’s “A major Violin Concerto, K.219.” Stephanie Gonley will direct the ECO and the repertoire will also include the Dvorak and Tchaikovsky Serenades, Haydn’s “Trauer” Symphony and Britten’s “Variations on a theme by Frank Bridge.”

    Born in Lexington, Virginia in 1979, Hahn first studied violin aged 3 at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute. At 10, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Two years later, she made her first appearance with a major orchestra with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Hahn signed her first musical recording contract at 16 with Sony. Hahn plays on an 1864 copy of Paganini’s “Cannone” made by Vuillaume. Praised as another glamorous violinist after Isaac Perlman, she won Grammy Awards in 2003 and 2009.

    The ECO is the most recorded chamber orchestra in the world, its discography contains 857 recordings of over 1,500 works by more than 400 composers. It has been chosen to record various film soundtracks, including scores by John Barry and Dario Marianelli’s prizewinning soundtracks for “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement.” The orchestra last worked with Hahn in a European festivals tour in 2008.