BEIJING MUSIC FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 12th YEAR OF WORLD-RENOWNED CLASSICAL MUSIC FROM OCTOBER 10th – 30th, 2009

09-01-2009

 

Festival to feature From Mao to Mozart tribute to legendary violinist Isaac Stern

 

The 2009 Beijing Music Festival opens this year's season on October 10th and runs through October 30th, celebrating its 12th year as a preeminent classical music festival. The 2009 festival features a diverse program of renowned musicians from around the globe, including China, Japan, Germany, Australia, the US,  Africa, Russia and the UK. Led by world-renowned conductor Long Yu, co-founder and current Artistic Director of the China Philharmonic, and founder and Artistic Director of the Beijing Music Festival, this year's Beijing Music Festival cements China's role at the forefront of classical music in the 21st century.

 

The festival gala will open with Verdi's Macbeth, featuring Finland's Savonlinna Opera Festival and the China Philharmonic who were recently crowned one of "the world's 10 most inspiring orchestras" by Gramophone magazine. Fittingly, given the Beijing Music Festival's vital role in nurturing classical music in the East, the China Philharmonic were celebrated by Gramophone "for almost single-handedly bringing Western classical music to the ears and hearts of a vast nation, for whom it had been forbidden for decades."

 

Highlights of the festival include an evening of chamber music with Taiwanese violinist Cho-Liang Lin, Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker and Russian violist Maxim Rysanov and cellist Mischa Maisky joined by famed violinist Vera Tsu; a symphony performance by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields featuring extraordinary violinist Sarah Chang, and a violin concerto by the illustrious Japanese Midori. Other featured performances include a night of Russian repertoire performed by the acclaimed Sydney Symphony Orchestra with conductor Vladmir Ashkenazy, a classic concerti showcase featuring violin virtuoso Pinchas Zukerman, a piano recital by the eminent Gary Graffman and a three night celebration of Haydn, honoring the composer 200 years after his death. Other variety programs include a piano recital showcasing the emerging new talent of Zhang Haochen, the 2009 Gold Medalist Winner of the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; New Contemporary works by New York’s Bang on a Can, the Ancient Chinese Spirit by the Jiangzhou Drum Troupe, and Sounds of Africa featuring the Boys Choir of Kenya.

 

The festival culminates in an incredible 30th anniversary tribute to the late celebrated violinist and master Isaac Stern, who visited China in 1979 to collaborate with the China Central Philharmonic. The festival performance, titled From Mao to Mozart, pays homage to the Oscar-winning documentary of the same name, which followed Stern across China. Stern's landmark visit occurred three years after the official end of the Cultural Revolution, and was critical to US-Sino relations and for introducing Western classical music to the East. The violinist's son David Stern will conduct the performance, which features Isaac Stern's prodigy, internationally renowned cellist Jian Wang.

 

The festival's founder and Artistic Director Long Yu has appeared with a prestigious list of orchestras and opera companies around the world, including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony (Washington DC), Hamburg State Opera, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Radio Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig, Sydney Symphony, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. This fall, Long Yu will be featured in Carnegie Hall’s Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: Celebrating Chinese Culture, a festival paying tribute to China’s diverse and vibrant culture.

 

For a complete program of the Beijing Music Festival, please visit www.bmf.org.cn

 

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