On September 1 & 2 at 7:30 PM at Auckland Town Hall, Maestro Leonard Weiss leads the Auckland Phiharmonia Orchestra in “East/West: A Symphonic Celebration” featuring soloists: Programme Director of Classical Performance and Head of Piano Studies at New Zealand School of Music Dr.Jian Liu (piano), Christina Ellison (soprano), and Bo Jiang (tenor). 

The opening piece is The Torch Festival by Xilin Wang, followed with Aotearoa Overture by Douglas Gordon Lilburn and Chinese Sights and Sounds by Yuankai Bao. The second half begins with Gift by Tian Zhou, a Grammy-nominated Chinese-American composer. The Song of Yangtze River echoes the New Zealand folk song Pokarekare Ana. The concert concludes with celebrated piano concerto The Yellow River.  

These two concerts are produced by China Arts and Entertainment Group Ltd. (CAEG) and part of CAEG's Image China cultural exchange initiative, which seeks to introduce traditional and contemporary Chinese performing arts to audiences around the world.