Evolution｜2020/2021
Zhu Wei | Guest‑Invited Painter
Starting from the 2019/20 concert season, Mr. Zhu Wei was appointed Guest‑Invited Painter for the China NCPA Orchestra and China NCPA Chorus. Over more than two years, with his unique insight and masterful brushwork, he has built a remarkable bridge for dialogue between the musical world and visual art. His body of work includes the Cadenza series from the 2019/20 season, large‑scale pieces 250th Anniversary of Beethoven’s Birth, String Quartet and Swan Lake from 2020/21, the monumental painting Radiance Within for the current season, along with numerous sketches and studies. All stand as the fruits of his intellectual and artistic exploration.
Painters are endowed with extraordinary perception, observing everything in the universe. When an artist devotes themselves intensely to a specific theme over a period, the journey may yield rich creative rewards — yet it can also be a considerable artistic adventure, given the immense investment of time, emotion and energy it demands. In this light, we hold deep admiration and affection for Zhu Wei’s commitment over these past two‑plus years, and take great pride in his achievements.
Sound is undoubtedly the core of musicians’ creation and output, yet it is far from everything. Centered on sound, composers, performers, audiences and countless people across time and space connect through live performances and silent emotional resonance, jointly building the vast world we call “musical life”. Musicians lost in performance, audience faces glowing with excitement or quiet contemplation, emotions overflowing from sound to stir all living things, and the joy and fervour unique to concert halls worldwide‑‑all are beautiful ripples within this musical life. Zhu Wei’s paintings offer a sideways record of such experiences. More importantly, they free us from the limits of sound, allowing us to reflect on musical life in a broader sense.
Radiance Within, his new monumental work for this season, functions as a collective portrait of all musicians of the China NCPA Orchestra. Painting an orchestra demands great courage: it is challenging enough to vividly render the diverse faces of over a hundred musicians, and even harder to make an ensemble shine powerfully on canvas without a single note. Nevertheless, this painting reveals the invisible bond connecting musicians and audiences. Like an unseen giant hand, it touches every face, gaze and figure. The bright moon, whether hanging in the sky or dwelling deep within the heart, is woven together by Zhu Wei’s brush into one singular force and temperament. This very force and temperament defines our collective identity. When we step onto the stage and the music begins, it merges seamlessly with our performance. It generates powerful unity and resonance onstage, flowing into every audience member to fill the concert hall with a shared atmosphere. Sorrow, longing, perplexity, inspiration, hope and emotion all dissolve into profound empathy, uniting us beyond all divides.
As Romain Rolland wrote: “The great significance of art lies in its power to reveal humanity’s genuine feelings, inner private lives and passionate worlds‑‑realities long accumulated and fermented deep within us before finally rising to the surface.” Thanks to Zhu Wei’s extraordinary perceptiveness, those genuine feelings and passions long nurtured inside our musicians have been captured in a non‑musical form, making our inner world accessible to wider audiences. This allows us to step outside our own perspective, gain fresh understanding of the value of our work, and strengthen our resolve. We owe our gratitude to Zhu Wei: for his masterful brushwork, distinctive vision and exceptional sensitivity, and above all for the insight and encouragement brought by this collective portrait.
This also represents one core purpose behind our multi‑year Guest‑Invited Artist Programme. Through these paintings, Mr. Zhu Wei immortalises the most touching moments of artistic and theatre life as lasting visual memories, enabling audiences to appreciate the precious value of art through dimensions beyond sound. With sincere thanks, we look forward eagerly to more outstanding works from him, as visual art guides us toward the profound, expansive realm of artistic and theatrical experience.
Ren Xiaolong
General Manager, China NCPA Orchestra
