"Music is the crux of the matter" is the motto of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

The orchestra is committed to focusing on, listening to and wrestling with the work in question and exploring its spiritual background. In this way, each concert becomes an emotional and cognitive experience.

Chinese audiences will soon get to be part of such an experience as the orchestra will tour Shanghai, Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province, and Beijing this month as part of the Germany and China - Moving Ahead Together program.

The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin orchestra emerged in 1923 from a group of musicians involved in the first public radio program ever produced in Germany.

The foremost living composers picked up the baton or performed as soloists, spreading contemporary music over the airwaves. Today, it is regarded as one of the best orchestras in Berlin.

In 2005, Simon Rattle led the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to captivate Beijing and Shanghai audiences with a strong German-style sound.

Now, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin brings a repertoire of the great Germany composers Beethoven and Brahms. And taking the baton is the renowned Russian conductor Pmitrij Kitajenko, who has collaborated with the orchestra for some 30 years.

The orchestra will participate in the Shanghai International Arts Festival on November 4 and 5, and the Eighth China Arts Festival in Wuhan on November 7 and 8 before wrapping up the tour at the Great Hall of the People on November 9.

Shaanxi People's Radio Station will broadcast the Beijing concert live. It is the first time that a provincial radio station is allowed to broadcast an event at the Great Hall of the People.

"It's thrilling to see a large German orchestra cover the huge stage of the Great Hall of the People and play the most powerful Beethoven's Symphony No 5," says Kitajenko.

"You have to give the musicians space for their own images, to use their own individual emotional intelligence. That is the only way that music can come to life. Musicians are very sensitive, and if you work with them at their own level, ideas come alive: Both sides become richer from the experience," says the veteran conductor.

"I know many Chinese soloists and composers have earned fame in the world. I love Tan Dun's music, and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester once performed his work. And I have attended the concerts by Lang Lang and Li Yundi in Germany. Li's talent and understanding of music is rare of a soloist of his age. He is really a poet of a pianist," says the conductor, who will collaborate with Li to record Chopin's concerto at the end of the year.

(China Daily November 3, 2007)