After an absence of five years, world renown violinist Xue Wei (薛偉) is performing in Taipei again, Xue, currently residing in London, is being featured in an upcoming concert with Taipei Performers Union (台北演奏家聯盟管弦樂團). He will be playing the famous Butterfly Lovers violin concerto (梁祝小提琴協奏曲) for the first time in Taiwan.
As the only music professor from China at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Xue has had an extensive career as a viloinist. He want to a high school for talented musicians in Shanghai at the age of 15, before going on to study music in Beijing and London. He was under Yfrah Neaman's tutelage while studying at Guildhall School of Music. His competition record includes a second place in the Tchaikovsky International Competition and first place in the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition.
Gramophone has describe him as "one of the outstanding violinists of our time."
Xue's program for his Taipei performances will include the Butterfly Lovers violin concerto, besides western classics form Brahms, Bruch and Mendelssohn.
The Butterfly Lovers concerto was composed in 1959 by a group of music students in Shanghai. Based on a popular Chinese opera about the love between Liang Shan-po (梁山泊) and Zhu Ying-tai (祝英台), the concerto quickly became highly popular.
The tragic love story, a Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet, ends with the lovers transformed into butterflies.
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