The Beijing Music Festival has announced its 2023 season. Here is a rundown of the classical vocal performances. It opens with an opening concert featuring soprano Zhang Liping. Yang Yang conducts the China Philharmonic & Beijing Chinese Orchestra. Performance Date: Sept. 22, 2023 Yu Ji conducts the Chinese premiere of Haydn’s “Il Mondo della Luna” with a cast starring Yi Yang, {…}
Back in 2016, Zou Shuang joined the Beijing Music Festival as Associate Program Director, initiating the New Wave Program that introduced new works to Chinese audiences, including “Winterreise,” “La Voix Humaine,” “Giovanni and Vixen” and “The Fugitive.” Her work with the music festival led her to become the Artistic Director of the festival. She has only continued to push the {…}
What is it like to crossover from opera to rock music? Better yet,what it is like to fuse both genres into one score? That was the challenge mezzo-soprano Yajie Zhang had to face for the new opera “Orfeo” by Fay Kueen Wang and Zou Shuang. A classically trained performer, Zhang has steadily risen the ranks of the opera world performing {…}
When Meili Li completed his studies at the Royal Academy of Music, he became the first Chinese counter‐tenor to have received a conservatoire education. Since completing his studies, Li has gone on to perform a wide range of repertoire that includes Renaissance lute songs and vocal ensemble music to 20th and 21st-century contemporary operas and songs. He has also become one {…}
It’s another week of discovery for OperaWire. Instead of the classic gems of the repertoire, this week we have opted to concentrate on companies presenting rare works as well as modern classics and a world premiere. Here is a look! Orfeo – Beijing Music Festival, China Fay Jueen Wang and Zou Shuang’s new immersive opera makes its world premiere in a {…}
Composer and performer Fay Kueen Wang’s is a multi-faceted performer who has drawn inspiration from avant-garde concert music, theater, film, electronic music, Chinese folk music, and indie pop, garnering rave reviews along the way. She has performed across China, Europe, and the United States in such prestigious venues as the Berliner Philharmonie, Lincoln Center, Arnold Schoenberg Center, Musikverein, Oper Graz, Merkin Hall, Joseph {…}
The Beijing Music Festival is celebrating its 21st anniversary by bringing a diverse array of repertoire intent on exploring its innovative and boundary-crossing initiatives. This year alone, the festival is showcasing a half-dozen diverse works of music drama and theatre. It opened its festival with “Farewell My Concubine,” a Chinese opera that brings together a classic story with traditional Chinese {…}
What do opera and musical theatre have in common? Do they belong in the same companies and spaces? Are they compatible? These are questions that the classical music world has been contending with for the past decades. In a push to expand an audience and bring younger audiences, such companies as the Lyric Opera of Chicago and other smaller companies {…}