On September 22nd, under the theme of "Music, Youth, Future, Attitude" with the main idea of "Together for the Future", the 25th/26th Beijing Music Festival, also known as BMF, will open at the Poly Theatre in Beijing. The festival will run until October 15th, featuring 22 diverse and rich music performances, including China premieres of operas, new commissioned works, solo and chamber music, and visual symphony concerts. The performances will bring together musicians and performing groups from China, Germany, the UK, Spain, and other countries, with a particular focus on showcasing the youthful energy of the classical music world. Through new works and emerging artists, the festival aims to lead the audience to explore the future of classical music culture.
Conductor Yang Yang, young cellist Mo Mo, and singer Zhang Liping will join the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Beijing Chinese Orchestra at the opening concert of this year's Beijing Music Festival (BMF) at the Poly Theatre.
At the opening concert, conductor Yang Yang, young cellist Mo Mo, and singer Zhang Liping will join the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Beijing Chinese Orchestra on stage to perform works by contemporary composer Chen Qigang and composers from a century ago, including Xiao Youmei, Zhao Yuanren, and Liu Tianhua, to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the establishment of the Peking University School of Music and the 90th anniversary of the death of composer and reformer of Chinese music, Liu Tianhua. Among them, the Beijing Music Festival and the Beijing Chinese Orchestra jointly commissioned composer Zou Ye to create "Listening to Liu Tianhua," which will re-create Liu Tianhua's classic melodies, and this work will be performed by the two orchestras together. The venue for the concert is the Poly Theatre.
将在中国首演柴可夫斯基的第五交响曲，由中国爱乐乐团和北京民族乐团共同演出。这场音乐会将在北京国际音乐节（BMF）期间在保利剧院举行。
Spreading Chinese stories in a global language, this year's Beijing Music Festival takes the interpretation of "Chinese concept" to a further level. Looking back to 1922, the Beijing University Music School was established, which gathered the most avant-garde music ideas at that time. The Beijing University Music School was the earliest professional music education institution established in China according to the Western model, and is considered one of the founders of music colleges in China. The institution has trained a group of outstanding talents in music education. More than half a century later, Chinese composer Chen Qigang created the cello concerto "Reflet d'un temps disparu". He used the overtone melody from the ancient Chinese tune "Meihua Sannong" to construct a magnificent musical structure, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in deep thoughts when recalling the past. This work fully demonstrates Chen Qigang's unique composition technique, which integrates profound Chinese traditional culture and music tradition. In addition, the concert also presented four songs by Xiao Youmei and Zhao Yuanren, the soul figures of the music school. They have made outstanding contributions to the development of Chinese music, reflecting the inheritance from the music school to the Beijing Music Festival spanning a hundred years.
Zou Shuang, the artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, spoke at the opening concert press conference.
Zou Shuang, the artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, said at the opening press conference on September 21 that this year's festival brings together well-known Chinese and foreign composers from the 50s to the 00s and outstanding young talents. Commissioned works from "Listening to Liu Tianhua" open a new chapter of "Chinese concept". From classical to jazz, from national to world, they are passionately performed by young musicians from both China and the West. These works will comprehensively look forward to an anticipated musical future from different dimensions.
With the performance of "Listening to Liu Tianhua" and "The Monkey King" during this year's music festival, the list of commissioned works for the Beijing Music Festival has expanded to 22. Yu Long, the chairman of the Beijing Music Festival Art Committee, said, "Our generation of Chinese musicians should leave the voice of this era for future generations and create works that belong to this era. 'Listening to Liu Tianhua' and 'The Monkey King' are our tribute to the glorious history and culture of our motherland, and also our respect for the efforts of our predecessors to inherit cultural genes. These two works reflect the cultural responsibility of the music festival's commissioning system to keep up with the times, and also reflect the cultural confidence of the music festival in telling Chinese stories well."
