Initiated by pianist Zee Zee, the Z+ Festival—an annual celebration of chamber music either originally written or adapted from other genres—entered its second edition in 2025.
The closing concert on Sunday evening featured Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15, performed in Victor Derevianko’s arrangement for piano trio and percussion by Zee Zee and her friends: violinist Ning Feng, cellist Chen Yibai, erhu player Lu Yiwen, flautist Bartolomeo Audisio, percussionists Fu Yifei, Georgi Videnov and June Moon Kyung Hahn.
Framed between these two masterpieces were new arrangements of Chinese classics: Birds Singing in a Desolated Mountain for erhu solo by Liu Tianhua, arranged for erhu and violin by Liang Nan, and The Flowing Stream, a Yunnan folk tune arranged by Xu Ke in a fusion style. Both arrangers are faculty members teaching composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
Here’s a glimpse of the ten-day long festival’s closing concert at Shanghai Symphony Hall on 20 April 2025.
