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Classical music fans will have a chance to sample an array of
classical and contemporary music from Australia, Japan and China
this week in the Sixth Meet in Beijing Arts Festival.
The festival opened with the ethnic gala show "Wind of Colorful
Guizhou" on April 28 and will end on May 27.
The three symphony concerts at the Poly Theatre will give the
festival a new twist after the exotic Mexican song and dance shows,
French ballet and Russian rock bands in its first week.
On Wednesday, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) will
present Liszt's "Piano Concerto No 2," Mahler's "Symphony No 5" and
"New Upbeat," a piece that the orchestra commissioned the
Melbourne-based Chinese composer Julian Yu to score specially for
its China tour.
On Thursday and Friday, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra will give
two concerts featuring the eminent Chinese violinist Huang Mengla
playing Tchaikovsky's "Violin Concerto No 1."
Australian orchestra
With the West Australian Symphony Orchestra's first
international tour in 23 years, its chief conductor Matthias Bamert
will lead the orchestra to perform in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou,
Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The tour also features the French pianist
Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
"We appreciate the opportunity it provides to highlight the
talent of the orchestra and to enhance the cultural linkages
between Australia and China. It's our honor to be part of the Meet
in Beijing Arts Festival and to be included in such a diverse
display of artistic performances," said Janet Holmes a Court, head
of the orchestra.
"The language of music is often said to be a universal one. It
requires no translation. It cannot be misunderstood. We believe
this WASO tour will do much to underline the importance of this
cultural dialogue for future relations between China and
Australia," she added.
Formed in 1922, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra started
as the Perth Symphony Orchestra, with a small group of musicians
performing weekly concerts.
Today, the orchestra has been West Australia's largest and
busiest performing arts company and has played a central role in
the heart of musical life in western Australia, performing over 170
concerts each year.
Led by the London-based conductor Matthias Bamert since 2003,
the West Australian Symphony Orchestra has an innovative approach
to music programming, performing both artistically vibrant
classical music as well as original contemporary music. Through its
"Summer and Contempo Series," the orchestra regularly joins forces
with international and Australian pop musicians to create concerts
that fuse popular contemporary pieces with classical music.
The West Australian Symphony Orchestra is also at the forefront
to commission original compositions. Last October, the orchestra
commissioned the Melbourne composer Julian Yu to create an opening
piece for this China Tour.
"The six-minute piece combines traditional Chinese musical
elements with some Australian folk tunes that are familiar to
Chinese people. Both Chinese and Australian listeners can easily
figure out their familiar tunes from the short delightful symphonic
work," Yu told China Daily on a telephone interview from
Melbourne.
Before setting off for the China tour, Bamert conducted the West
Australian Symphony Orchestra which gave two warming up concerts in
Perth on May 4 and 5. As the opening piece of the concerts, Yu's
"New Upbeat" has won wide acclaim from the local audience.
The 49-year-old Beijing-born Yu is the two-time winner of
Australia's highest award, the Paul Lowin Orchestra Prize. He
learned composition at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music and
the Tokyo College of Music.
Since emigrating to Australia in 1985, he has studied Western
music in depth while exploring how to inherit the Chinese musical
tradition in different ways. Instead of borrowing the external
sounds and modes of Chinese music, he has tapped into its inner
structures.
Yu's music is said to be "delicate and intricate, but can be
vigorous and rhythmical," according to critics in Australia, who
also believe that his music represents "a unique fusion of Asian
and Western cultures and is not confined by national or ethnic
boundaries."
In December 2002, the Melbourne Symphony commissioned him to
write a piece for the orchestra's China trip. Called "Willow and
Wattle," it involved Chinese and Western themes featuring solos on
the Chinese stringed instruments, erhu and jinghu.
Tokyo Symphony
The festival will also feature the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra,
which is celebrating its 60th anniversary of its founding.
On March 14, Chinese leading conductor Li Xincao, resident
conductor of the China National Symphony Orchestra, was invited to
take the baton to perform at one of the celebration concerts at
Tokyo's Suntory Hall.
The 26-year-old Chinese violinist Huang Mengla was also featured
at that concert, playing his trademark piece Paganini's "Violin
Concerto No 1."
Two months later, led by its resident conductor Norichika
Limori, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Huang will give two
concerts in the Beijing festival.
In 2002, Huang won the first prize at the prestigious Paganini
International Violin Competition in Italy, where he also was
awarded the Renato De Barbieri Memorial award for the best
interpretation of Paganini's caprices and the Mario Ruminelli
Memorial award.
The young Shanghai-born violinist has been hailed as the
"Chinese Paganini" by the press.
Huang began to study the violin when he was 4 and entered
Shanghai Conservatory at the age of 8. His rare talent was
immediately recognized by the renowned violinist Yu Lina with whom
he has studied since.
In December 2004, Huang signed a contract with Universe,
following the steps of the prodigy pianists Lang Lang and Li Yundi
and famous cellist Wang Jian, to become the fourth Chinese
classical musician under the world-renowned label.
In addition to Tchaikovsky's "Violin Concerto No 1," the Tokyo
Symphony Orchestra's two different programs for the two nights are
both a treat for the concert-goers.
On Thursday, the concert will start with the Chinese piece "The
Good News Spreads from Beijing to Borderland Village" followed by
"Wedding March" by the renowned Japanese composer Ikuma Dan
(1924-2001). The piece was created for the wedding of Crown Prince
Akihito and Princess Michiko in 1959.
The second half features the overture of the music "Candide"
composed by Leonard Bernstein's and Italian composer Ottorino
Respighi's "Pines of Rome."
Friday night will feature music by the other famous Japanese
composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-96). Takemitsu explores the
compositional principles of Western classical music and his native
Japanese tradition both in isolation and in combination. He first
came to wide attention when his "Requiem for String Orchestra"
(1957) was praised by Igor Stravinsky. And this time, the Tokyo
Symphony Orchestra brings the very piece to Beijing.
The second half includes the overture of Mozart's "The Marriage
of Figaro" and Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No 4 in F Minor."
(China Daily May 8, 2006)
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