August 13, 2026
Shanghai Concert Hall | Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin Go On Sale Tomorrow, With One More Work Than Advertised
Joshua Bell returns to the Shanghai Concert Hall on 17 October after eight years, playing the Dvořák concerto and directing the Jupiter from the violin. Tickets open 14 August, 18:00 for members and 19:00 for everyone, ¥180–880. The programme card carries a Beethoven overture the announcement does not mention.
By 小魔女·Edited by 马勒迷
Joshua Bell plays the main hall of the Cadillac Shanghai Concert Hall at 7.30pm on 17 October with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, whose music director he has been since 2011. It is eight years since he last played this hall. Tickets are ¥180, 280, 380, 480, 680 and 880; they open at 18:00 on 14 August for priority members and 19:00 for everyone else. Order between 14 and 21 August and the ¥680 tier and above is 15% off, not combinable with other discounts.
He does two jobs that evening. Before the interval he is the soloist in Dvořák's A minor concerto, a piece that sits permanently behind the Brahms and the Tchaikovsky and is better written than its reputation, the slow movement especially. After it he stands inside the orchestra and directs Mozart's Jupiter from the violin, whose finale — five subjects stacked into a fugue — is about as far as eighteenth-century symphonic writing went.
The programme card has three works; the announcement names two
We found this while adding the listing. The venue's copy describes a two-half concert, Dvořák then Mozart. The programme card printed with the poster has three works, opening with Beethoven's Egmont Overture, Op. 84.
Normally a discrepancy like that stays flagged rather than resolved. Not here. The municipal culture bureau's permit record holds two documents for this concert. The original is 沪文旅许[2026]3840号, granted on 16 July. A second, 沪文旅许[2026]4279号, was granted on 5 August, and its subject line reads "adds 3 performers and 1 work". The added work matches the extra piece on the card.
So our page carries three. This is why we transcribe the programme card rather than the marketing copy — copy is written to tell a story, and an opening overture is the easiest thing to drop from one.
Tickets are mini-program only
The poster gives the purchase route as searching for the 上海音乐厅 mini-program inside WeChat. The venue website's ticketing API does not carry this concert; we checked, and its on-sale list holds 13 projects, none of them this one. That is the second time this month we have hit the same thing, and our page says so plainly.