09/08/2024
The Beijing Music Festival (BMF), the foremost international classical music festival in China, announced today the programming for its 27th festival, with the theme of Voices From Afar. Scheduled from October 5 to 13, the festival offers musically and culturally diverse performances every day, with renowned artists from China, France, the United States, Austria, South Africa, and Germany, among other countries. The festival will present 10 concerts and 11 public events at venues that include the National Center for the Performing Arts, Poly Theatre, Zhongshan Park Music Hall, and the Sacrificial Altar in the Temple of Heaven. Among the highlights are the China premiere of the classic American opera Porgy and Bess, the Beijing premiere of Aaron Zigman’s new oratorio Émigré, and the Asian premiere of Andy Akiho’s virtuosic piece for percussion quartet “Seven Pillars”, performed by Sandbox Percussion, which commissioned it.
Since its founding in 1998 by conductor Long Yu — a milestone in China’s classical music industry — BMF offers a glimpse into the future of classical music, creating a platform for domestic and international performance exchanges, turning Beijing into an international music hub every fall. Now led by Artistic Director Shuang Zou, the festival bridges China to the rest of the world through the arts, also galvanizing the creation of Western and Chinese contemporary music. BMF lets young Chinese musicians showcase their talents from a platform with global reach, which has been the driving force for Long Yu, the former artist director who now serves as the chairman of the Artistic Committee, for many years. BMF is the most authoritative arts and culture event in Asia.
The 27th BMF proudly presents the China premiere of Porgy and Bess, the beloved opera by George Gershwin, which tells the story of a man trying to rescue a woman from a distressing life. The 1935 stage work, which celebrates African-American life and culture in Charleston, South Carolina, is still relevant today through its themes of timelessness, placelessness, struggle, and hope. The new semi-staged production, directed by Noa Naamat and conducted by Kazem Abdullah, is a co-production between the Beijing Music Festival, Cape Town Opera, and KT Wong Foundation. It will be performed on October 12 and 13 at Poly Theatre; a press conference will be held on October 10. (Porgy and Bess will also be performed in Shanghai on October 8.)
The Beijing premiere of Aaron Zigman and Mark Campbell’s 2023 oratorio Émigré will take place on October 6 at National Centre for The Performing Arts. Campbell’s libretto for Émigré, in English, tells a love story against the historical backdrop of the thousands of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai to escape N**i oppression during the National Socialist era. Maestro Long Yu conducts the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lanzhou Concert Hall Choir, and a stellar cast. Émigré had successful premieres in Shanghai and New York recently, and will be performed in Europe for the first time in November.
American composer Andy Akiho’s trailblazing Seven Pillars is an 80-minute, 11-movement suite for percussion that consists of seven ensemble movements and one solo movement for each member of the group. The structure is formed by two simultaneous processes: an additive process in which each movement introduces a new instrument, and a symmetrical/palindromic structure on either side of the central movement. It is Akiho’s most ambitious project to date. Seven Pillars was nominated for two GRAMMY® awards — “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” and “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance” — and was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music. It will be performed by Sandbox Percussion for the first time in Asia on October 11 at Forbidden City Concert Hall.
The 27th BMF also includes performances by internationally renowned artists that include composer and conductor Tan Dun, bandleader Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Hélène Grimaud, cellist Gautier Capuçon, percussionist Shengnan Hu, and the Salzburger Camerata. Acclaimed contemporary composers Richard Dubugnon and Zhou Long, among many others, will be present at the festival.
