Beijing Music Festival


The Beijing Music Festival is an annual music festival held in Beijing which according to Chinaculture.org has become one of the most well-known musical events in the world, drawing international attention. According to Chinaculture.org the festival presents about 30 concerts in October every year offering a wide variety of classical and jazz music including opera, orchestral, chamber, solo, and choral concerts. BMF also gives prominence to music education and community engagement offering free children's concerts and students' concerts, as well as master classes which draw about 6,000 music students, teachers, and spectators. It prides itself in presenting both Western and Chinese music alike.
According to Chinaculture.org notable performers that have appeared at the festival include Martha Argerich, Pinchas Zukerman, Jean Yves Thibaudet, Emmanuel Ax, Murray Perahia, Maxim Vengerov, Christoph Eschenbach, Tan Dun, Kathleen Battle, Du Yun, Jose Carreras, Sarah Chang, Augustin Dumay, Valery Gergiev, Mischa Maisky, Krzysztof Penderecki, Issac Stern, Melvyn Tan, Fou Ts'ong, the Kodály Quartet, and the New London Consort.
In June 2018, the President and Artistic Director of BMF for 20 years, world-renowned Chinese conductor Maestro Long Yu, stepped down passing the Artistic Director role to Shuang Zou. Long Yu is now the chair of the artistic committee.

History

Beijing Music Festival is a non-profit organization which was founded in 1998 by Long Yu, with the endorsement of the Ministry of Culture and the Beijing Municipal Government. The festival has presented numerous historical performances such as the China premiere of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the Asian premiere of Alban Berg's opera, Lulu ; Guo Wenjing's operas, Ye Yan and Wolf Club Village ; and the China premiere of Ricard Wagner's complete Ring Cycle. The festival encourages the production of both Western and Chinese contemporary music presenting premieres and commissions by composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Philip Glass, Guo Wenjing, Ye Xiaogang, Tan Dun, and Howard Shore.
BMF was among the first organizations in China to commission new works by Chinese composers as well as foreign composers, which has laid a strong base for international cultural exchange.

Recent festivals

2019

With the theme "Timeless Music in the Future," BMF's 22nd festival was held from October 4-28, 2019. The festival presented 16 distinct programs including operas, symphonic concerts, recitals, chamber music concerts, and virtual reality music experiences. It began with an 8-hour performance of Max Richter's Sleep at the foot of the Great Wall of China. Additional performances included the Asian premiere of Eight, a mixed-reality musical theater work written by Michel van der Aa and co-commissioned by BMF; the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel's Bone by Du Yun; and the China premiere of Handel’s Xerxes performed by Opera Fuoco and David Stern. Guest artists included sopranos Renée Fleming and Edita Gruberová, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, prodigy Alma Deutscher, maestros Long Yu, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit, and Pinchas Zukerman, and BMF's first resident orchestra Mahler Chamber Orchestra, among others. BMF also presented the world premiere of Aaron Zigman’s Tango Manos Piano Concerto.

2018

According to CGTN BMF's 2018 festival, the first with Shuang Zou as Artistic Director in place of Long Yu, focused on staged productions and was held October 12-26 with the theme "Entering the 21st - Dawn of a New Era." According to the Global Times the Festival presented 21 performances and 13 outreach events including the world premiere of the immersive opera, Orfeo, by Fay Kueen Wang. Other performances included a reimagining of a Peking opera, Farewell My Concubine; a musical theater adaptation of Leoš Janácek's song cycle, Diary of the One Who Disappeared; George Benjamin's Written on Skin; The Orphan of Zhao; and two concerts celebrating Leonard Bernstein's centenary.

2017

Held from October 8-29, 2017, the theme of BMF's 2017 festival was "Beijing Music Festival at 20" to commemorate its 20th anniversary. Highlights of the 41 events and outreach activities included an 11-hour orchestral marathon with nine Chinese symphony orchestras, a joint production with Salzburg Easter Festival of Richard Wagner's opera Die Walküre with Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden, and according to the Global Times the premiere of Qigang Chen's Violin Concerto by violinist Maxim Vengerov at the closing concert.

2016

The theme of BMF's 19th festival, which was held from October 9–29, 2016 was "Musical Legacy and Innovation." According to China Radio International the opening concert by China NCPA Orchestra and Chorus led by Lü Jia was the first collaboration between NCPA and BMF. The festival also presented the Chinese premiere of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Robert Carsen to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death and launched a five-year planned collaboration between BMF and Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. Other performances included Mozart's Don Giovanni presented as an immersive theatrical experience with visual effects; Blank Out, a 3D mini opera by Dutch composer Michel van der Aa; and the complete symphonic works of Tchaikovsky.

2015

According to CCTV BMF's 18th festival, held from October 8–24, 2015, included 18 performances by artists from over 30 countries and regions. The theme was "Revel in Romance" and focused on monumental works on opposite sides of the Romantic music spectrum - Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. Highlights included conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste leading the WDR Orchestra in the ambitious Brahms 4 Plus 4 Project and Gustav Kuhn leading Tirol Festival Erl in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and Tristan und Isolde.

Commissions

In commemoration of its 10th anniversary, BMF commissioned a second version of Krzysztof Penderecki's Symphony No. 8. The new version included an anonymous 15th-century Chinese poem and is 30 minutes longer than the original work. The commissioned version premiered on October 24, 2007 by the China Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of its composer.
BMF co-commissioned Zhou Long's first opera, Madame White Snake, with Opera Boston, which marked the first collaboration between BMF and an American opera company. Based on the Chinese legend of the White Snake, the work was premiered in Boston by Opera Boston on February 26, 2010 and then in China on October 27, 2010 during the 13th Beijing Music Festival.
The BMF Arts Foundation commissioned Howard Shore's Ruin and Memory, a concerto for piano and orchestra written for and premiered by Lang Lang with the China Philharmonic conducted by Long Yu on October 11, 2010. The three-movement work was written in celebration of Frederic Chopin's 200th anniversary. Shore commented "The piece is really my musical reflection of Chopin's time and the life he lived. The title captures a bit of Chopin's life, about where he came from and the world he lived in, and what became of him when that world no longer existed."
BMF commissioned the opera, Song of Farewell by Ye Xiaogang, and gave the world premiere during the closing concerts of the 13th festival, October 30 and 31, 2010. The work fuses Peking Opera and Western Opera with its traditional Chinese staging and Puccini-like score. The work is based on the Chinese film Farewell My Concubine.

Education and outreach

BMF partners with the Central Conservatory of Music to hold master classes for music students with such musicians as Isaac Stern, Ken Nagano, Fou Ts'ong, Warren Mok, Melvyn Tan, Jian Wang, and the Kodály Quartet. They also hold free children's concerts, pre-performance lectures, and student concerts.

Artistic committee

The artistic committee includes: