Ray Chen - Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto

Celebrated Australian violinist Ray Chen returns to Australia in August to perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

Mendelssohn’s much loved and wonderfully uplifting Violin Concerto demands an astonishing versatility and expressive range from its soloist – in this case, the brilliant Ray Chen. Composed towards the end of a career that barely spanned three decades, Mendelssohn poured his soul into the work that he wrote for a close friend. In Ray Chen performs Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will also perform Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony – featuring daring and perhaps the most beautiful slow movement of any of his symphonies – as well as the world premiere of Maria Grenfell’s 50 Fanfares Commission Clockwerk.

With a social media following of over 600,000, more than 42 million views on YouTube, and close to a million monthly listeners on Spotify, Chen first rose to prominence after winning the Yehudi Menuhin (2008) and Queen Elizabeth (2009) Competitions. Since then his profile has grown to encompass featuring in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list, appearing in Amazon’s popular series “Mozart in the Jungle” and a multi-year partnership with Giorgio Armani. In 2021, Chen teamed up with Sting for a track called ‘What Could Have Been’, which became part of the soundtrack for Netflix’s series Arcane.