The annual Beijing Music Festival has become a highlight event on Beijing's culture and arts calendar since it started in 1998. It has developed into one of the world's leading classical music festivals, attracting a variety of international musicians and orchestras to perform in Beijing every year.

This year in its tenth year, audiences in Beijing will be able to enjoy over 20 top-class concerts and operas by Chinese and overseas artists.

This year's festival will also highlight Lang Lang, one of China's premier young pianists. He will play 10 concertos, including works by Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin. He will collaborate with five world renowned orchestras and six conductors.

Let's hear more from Xiaoyu.

Reporter: 
    

"Music awakens the time."

With Daniel Barenboim��one of the world's most influential musicians��coming to China, the 10th Beijing Music Festival is imbued with a new sense of importance.

"I am very happy to be here. And this for me is not another trip, it is a very important first visit for me to a country that I have been very curious about for many years."

If you are a fan of classical music, you will definitely know Daniel Barenboim. In current musical circles, the world's top three authoritative musicians are Sir Simon Rattle, Christoph Eschenbach and Daniel Barenboim. At this year's Beijing Music Festival, Barenboim and Eschenbach will both show up and give performances collaborating with the young Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

During the one month long festival till the end of October, Lang Lang will present 10 concertos, collaborating with the world leading orchestras and conductors, including his teacher Daniel Barenboim. Lang Lang says he has been looking forward to the event for a long time.

"To play 10 concertos is one of my greatest wishes in life. What's more, I really appreciate the chance to collaborate with my master Barenboim, in my motherland, in Beijing. And since it is the first time Barenboim is visiting China, I'll try my best to play a wonderful show and build a new landmark for both of us."

This year is the tenth year since the birth of the Beijing Music Festival. The 10 concertos are just like a birthday gift to the festival. It is not a coincidence, but was deliberately designed. Yu Long is the artistic director and also the founder of Beijing Music Festival. He appreciates Lang Lang's contribution to the festival and also highly praises his musical talent.

"The Beijing Music Festival appreciates a lot the gift that Lang Lang gives us, to play 10 concertos. This may not happen again in the next 10 years. From any aspect, whether physical, spiritual or artistic, it's never been an easy task for a musician to play ten concertos within one month. For most people, they'll feel nervous before performing just one concerto. One cannot do it unless their artistic accomplishments have already reached a summit in the world."

From the very beginning, the Beijing Music Festival has served as a stage where the East has met the West. Besides bringing the best Western musicians and orchestras to China, the festival also devotes itself to promoting Chinese musicians and music. In previous years, the China Philharmonic Orchestra performed the works of world-famous Chinese composers such as Tan Dun and Guo Wenjing. And this year, composer Guo Wenjing will also bring along his new works. His opera, "Poet Li Bai" is one of the highlights. The opera has just finished premiering in America this July. Two months later, it is going to be shown in Beijing.

The artistic director of the festival Yu Long says that to form and keep a unique Chinese character has always been the main task for Beijing Music Festival.

"I think to put Guo Wenjing's new opera 'Poet Li Bai' on the festival's stage shows our good wishes and efforts to introduce Chinese culture to the world. The opera gained lots of fame when it premiered in America. Then just two months later, we can enjoy it in Beijing. We are at the same pace as the world. And I also want our people to give more support to our own opera."

In addition, Jonathan Nott and his Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, conductor Charles Dutoit, and cellist Wang Jian, to name just a few, are all on the performers' list. Many of these masters will give open classes during the festival. And the world's most renowned composer, Penderecki, also wrote Symphony No.8 at the festival's invitation. The China Philharmonic Orchestra will premiere the work together with Tan Dun's "Secret Land". The two composers will form a musical dialogue between the East and West through their productions and performances.

Tomorrow night Daniel Barenboim and Lang Lang will open this year's music feast at the Poly Theatre in Beijing.

For Beyond Beijing, this is Xiaoyu.