Beijing Music Festival promotes awareness of Chinese culture

Chinese musicians and performing artists are working to reinvigorate interest in traditional Chinese culture by borrowing aspects of the Western classical music tradition.

Their efforts have gained the support of Beijing Music Festival.

One of China's most influential conductors, Tan Lihua (right), conducts the Beijing Symphony Orchestra at a concert "Embracing the New Era" on October 15, 2018. [Photo provided to China Plus]

Zou Shuang, the new artistic director of the 21st Beijing Music Festival, said "our efforts to boost traditional Chinese music are expected to arouse attention from international audiences and artistic organizations. If we want to promote our own culture in other parts of the world, then we need to find a point where our two cultures meet and are immersed into each other. When traditional Chinese ideas about music are interpreted through popular, well-understood Western approaches, like in the form of opera, we will be able to better explore the essence of our own culture and promote it to new heights."

This year's Beijing Music Festival opened with "Farewell My Concubine", a traditional Peking opera that's well known in China. But it has been given a face-lift for its performance at the festival this year.

Veteran Peking opera actor Yang Chi plays Hegemon-King Xiang Yu in the new version of the opera.

"The Hegemon-King Xiang Yu is one of the most distinctive figures in Chinese history. But on the Peking opera stage, the artistic appeal has not been fully embodied. In our previous shows, performers highlighted his morality, and paid less attention to his loyal affection for his concubine. In this newly-adapted play, this has been emphasized. I'm happy about this collaboration, and I've learned a lot from it."

Zou Shuang, the new artistic director of the 21st Beijing Music Festival (2nd from left) attended a meeting with the cast of the new theatrical production "Farewell My Concubine" ahead of its opening on October 12, 2018. [Photo provided to China Plus]

Behind this new production is Chinese-American theater director Chen Shi-zheng. Chen said in an earlier interview that he has been working for years on helping audiences see the core values of traditional art from a contemporary perspective.

He thinks that his mix of old and new will be helpful for bridging cultural gaps, and that it will enable overseas audiences to better understand traditional Chinese opera arts.

Tan Lihua is one of China's most prolific and most influential conductors. He is also the head of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra.

"More traditional Chinese music performances will hopefully take the stage at the Beijing Music Festival. This year's festival is taking place during the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up policy, which is why the Beijing Symphony Orchestra is staging a concert with the theme "Embracing the New Era". Except for the 2nd piece, Chen Peixun's Aria of Snow, all of the other pieces that will be performed at the concert were commissioned by the music festival and will be introduced to audiences for the first time."

Founded in 1977, the Beijing Symphony Orchestra has had a good number of experiences performing their Western and Chinese repertoire. Maestro Tan explains the process for presenting Chinese folk songs using a Western musical approach.

A new theatrical production "Farewell My Concubine" opened at the Beijing Music Festival on October 12, 2018. [Photo provided to China Plus]

"We selected popular Chinese folk songs from the past four decades for the concert, and we use a Western-style symphony orchestra to perform these melodies. Our first song is In the Field of Hope. It's well known that China's reform and opening up initiative started in Xiaogang Village in Fengyang County, so the song fills the listeners' mind with an image of the countryside and leads them to recall the early days of the policy's implementation," said Tan.

This new approach to interpreting Chinese music was first tried at the 5th Beijing Music Festival in 2002, which featured works inspired by the distinctive cultures and customs of different regions around China.

This year, the 21st Beijing Music Festival is continuing to incorporate elements from ancient Chinese culture in performances that resonate with the audiences of today.