Beijing, CHINA (Top40 Charts/ Beijing
Music Festival) - The 2009 Beijing
Music Festival opens 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-famous conductor Long Yu, co-founder and Artistic
Director of the China Philharmonic, and founder and Artistic
Director of the Beijing
Music Festival, this year's 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 - recently crowned one of "the world's 10 most inspiring orchestras," by Gramophone magazine. Highlights of the festival include an evening of chamber music with violinist Cho-Liang Lin, pianist Jon Kimura Parker, 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 Midori. Other featured performances include Russian repertoire from the Sydney Symphony 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 recital showcasing the emerging new talent of the 2009 Gold Medalist Winner of the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and New Contemporary works by New York's Bang on a Can.
The festival culminates in a 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 - 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 festival Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: Celebrating Chinese Culture.
For a complete program of the Beijing Music Festival, please visit www.bmf.org.cn
