Angel Wang & Phoenix Orchestra: Phoenix Rising
Leaf Music

On Phoenix Rising, Chinese-born Canadian violinist Angel Wang and the Phoenix Orchestra frame endearing renditions of traditional Chinese songs with a ravishing performance of He Zhanhao and Chen Gang's beloved Butterfly Lovers Concerto and the 2023-commissioned titular work by esteemed Canadian composer Alice Ping Yee Ho. Symmetrically structured, the recording presents a splendid convergence of Chinese and Western classical material. Ho's single-movement tone poem for solo violin and orchestra received its world premiere at Toronto's Koerner Hall in December 2023 and was recorded a year later along with the rest of the album. Also known as the co-founder of the group Quartetto Gelato, the Italian-born Canadian Claudio Vena not only conducted the session, he also arranged the treatment of Butterfly Lovers Concerto and the five traditional settings.

If the playing of Wang and Phoenix Orchestra sounds symbiotic, there's an easy explanation: she's its founder and Artistic Director. As a faculty member of Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music and guest professor at China's Wulanchabu Conservatory, Wang has other irons in the fire, too. The release gloriously fulfills its mandate, to perform Western and Chinese classical music from all eras, be it Chinese repertoire from ancient times or Western compositions of recent and new vintage.

Considered the only Chinese violin concerto, Zhanhao and Gang's Butterfly Lovers Concerto (1959) is regarded as a modern Chinese masterpiece. In blending Chinese and Western compositional techniques, it also perfectly embodies the vision articulated by Wang and the orchestra. Grounded in a Chinese legend about two young lovers transformed into butterflies after their deaths, the richly melodic work advances through seven contrasting sections, some fragile and poignant, others exuberant and intense. Beyond the composition itself, the thing that most recommends the treatment is Wang's towering performance, which is stunning regardless of the musical tone in play. After emerging gently with flute, oboe, and strings evoking a bucolic pastoral scene, the solo violin sings its plaintive song and Wang gives aching voice to the work's entrancing melodies. The orchestra echoes her song as the soloist trills rapturously on high, Wang's upper-register command evident at every moment. The subsequent part charges through its rousing dance movements, with Wang's high velocity matched by the ensemble. Rustic gestures dovetail with dazzling action sequences until the pace slows for an adagio movement that's alternately tender and stately. Thereafter the work segues between dramatic episodes, their tempos furious and expressions grandiose, and passages of rhapsodic beauty. But a single exposure to this impassioned renderin is needed to appreciate why the work has become such a crowd-pleaser.

The five traditional songs that follow effect a smooth transition between the opening concerto and Ho's single-movement one. A traditional folk setting from China's Qinghai province, “Song of Four Seasons” radiates an endlessly affable glow, after which the haunting themes and robust dance gestures of Liu Tieshan and Mao Yuan's oft-performed “Dance of the Yao People” are delivered vividly by Wang and the orchestra. “Mayila” tells the story of a young Chinese girl whose lovely voice enchants all who hear it, and to that end Wang's rapturous lead violin convincingly embodies the girl's singing. Ablaze with energy, “Galloping Horses” musically evokes the charge of horses throttling across immense Mongolian grasslands, Wang again excelling at capturing the intended effect with her furious dazzle. The album's central section ends with a lovely treatment of “Jasmine Flower,” a serene eighteenth-century folk song from the Qing dynasty that's also famous for having provided the Chinese Princess's leitmotif in Puccini's Turandot.

November 2025