Stringing together an outstanding new season

She also notes that the two pieces trace a long, evolving relationship between poetry and music — from a 19th-century European Romantic poem to the voice of a Chinese poet of the 1980s and a new musical response from a contemporary Chinese composer.

Beethoven will take center stage in 2027 during the season, to honor the 200th anniversary of the composer's death. Lyu Jia, Huang Yi, Lithuanian violinist-conductor Julian Rachlin, and Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck will conduct the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth symphonies.

Gustavo Dudamel, music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic, will lead the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, joined by the NCPA Orchestra and its chorus, in Beethoven's Symphony No 9 in D Minor, Op 125, with its Ode to Joy finale, a monumental work about human fellowship and the hope for unity.

Violinist Lyu Siqing, cellist Trey Lee and pianist Chiyan Wong will perform Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C Major, Op 56, commonly known as the Triple Concerto, while the French string quartet Quatuor Diotima will make its season debut with John Adams' Absolute Jest, offering a playful encounter across centuries, mixing music from Beethoven's late string quartets with a modern orchestral sound.

Chinese works are another important strand of the new season.