Classical music goes pop

The Beijing Music Festival will head to the city's hip Sanlitun district to make it more accessible to the masses. Chen Jie reports.

This is the first time I've written a preview of the Beijing Music Festival (BMF) after it has kicked off since I first covered the annual event in the fall of 2000, two years after it was inaugurated.

And this year, a big and worthwhile change has taken place after the initial performances.

The festival opened on Tuesday at the Poly Theater with a concert by the 155-year-old Halle Orchestra from Manchester that featured the Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov and South Korean soprano Sumi Jo.

It was a good opening.

Vengerov played Tchaikovsky's Violin Con-certo in D Major and reaffirmed his rank among the world's best violinists, while Jo's operatic arias demonstrated she deserves her reputation as Asia's premier coloratura soprano.

Halle , one of the world's oldest orchestras , performed the following day at the Forbidden City Concert Hall, under the baton of Sir Mark Elder.

The concert highlighted British classics, including Elgar's Symphony No 1 in A Flat Major , a work Halle premiered in 1908.

Jo teamed up with the China Philharmonic Orchestra to perform opera and other pieces on the third day and will do so again tonight.

Sir James Galway , the man of the golden flute , and one-time principal flutist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra will play a chamber concert with Chinese guitarist Yang Xuefei and cellist Ma Xinhua at Wangfujing Church this evening.

They've all been impressive performances, as have all the concerts BMF has presented over the past 14 years. Every year, the previews and reviews I've written have retained the same themes , world-class orchestras, big name virtuosos and celebrated works.

But what I really expect to see and highly recommend starts tomorrow in Sanlitun Village.

That's right , Sanlitun Village, the city's trendy and fancy landmark venue, where luxury labels open flagship stores; designers give run-way shows; the Apple Store is packed with hip customers; kids play in the fountain; and Cold Stone's ice cream mixes with Starbucks' aroma.

I asked BMF's program director Tu Song: What is the biggest change this year?

The clarinetist turned director said: The change of location. We moved from the concert hall to dynamic Sanlitun.

I would answer my own questions with: There has been an attitude shift.

This classical music festival has become more down-to-earth, casual and welcoming to all walks of life.

The BMF's founder and artistic director Yu Long tells me that, whenever he walks in Salz-burg, he dreams of staging an open festival everybody can enjoy.

We always look for new ways to attract young audiences and bring people different musical experiences, Yu says.

And Sanlitun, for sure, offers a breath of fresh air.

He believes Sanlitun resembles Salzburg with its square, shops and restaurants. People hang out there to meet friends and enjoy life.

He vividly describes his vision: a concert is running inside Sanlitun's Orange hall, and a young man in smart business-casual watches the performance live on the big screen outside.

He sips coffee and takes a call from his girl-friend. She has just gotten off the subway and will arrive soon. He walks to meet her, and, 10 minutes later, the couple is sitting outside Star-bucks to enjoy the rest of the performance to-gether.

This is the city life I hope every Beijinger will enjoy, Yu says.

This addresses a paradox in which many Western musicians hail China as the future of classical music yet it is removed from most people's lives.

We have such big names as Lang Lang and Li Yundi. We have millions of children studying piano and violin, and a huge number of outstanding music students flooding European and US academies. And every city , even some second- or third-tier towns , hosts magnificent concert halls.

Still, most people feel detached from the genre.

I attend numerous concerts every year as a music writer and must say I keep seeing the same faces in the audiences.

They're a small community in the city of 20 million.

Most fall into two categories.

One I call the musical audience , a group that includes other musicians, music students, media (people like me) and a few passionate classical music aficionados.

The other is the VIP set , aka the business audience.

They don't buy tickets. They consider the concert hall to be a social platform to engage high society. Often, the tickets are gifts from business partners.

Both categories fall under the professional audience umbrella.

That's not to say new demographics aren't starting to penetrate what remains a tiny circle.

During the 2005 BMF, I watched the festi-val's landmark project, The Ring Cycle, for four nights. Every night was attended by an ordi-nary-looking young girl, who sat in front of me.

I guessed she was a new face. And I was right.

I was so curious that, on the last night, I asked her why she came alone to see such a complex Wagner opera for four nights.

She explained she had booked the tickets a month in advance because she adored Wagner , whom she fell in love with after she watched the 1979 Academy Award-winning movie Apocalypse Now.

She was impressed by the film's opening scene, in which the 1/9 Air Cavalry regiment plays The Ride of the Valkyries on helicopter-mounted loudspeakers while attacking a Vietnamese village.

She enjoys an obscure opera from a popular movie. That's a good start , an easily accessible point of entry.

It's akin to the way BMF tries to bring classical music to everybody.

Most people think they have nothing to do with classical music, Tu, the program director, says.

They think they don't understand it, so they don't go to listen to it. They think a concert is a black-tie event, where you must hold your breath for four movements.

But they're wrong. Music is music. They don't know they need it and might like it because they've never tried to listen to it.

Now, we're putting the genre right in front of them. When you're hanging out with friends after work or spending the weekend with family in Sanlitun, why not stop for a while and give yourself an opportunity to enjoy classical music?

Yu and Tu also design a variety of crossover performances from chamber music to jazz, and from choir to opera.

Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, one of the best Beethoven interpreters of our time, will perform all of Beethoven's 32 sonatas over seven nights at the Orange. Animated 3D films will be shown in accompaniment on the outside screen.

The concept is to create a scene in which it's as if Beethoven traveled in time and space from Europe 200 years ago to Beijing today.

The area will also host pre-concert talks and master classes for the public to learn more about classical music.

One eye-catching event will be a dialogue among Yu and his friends , the godfather of Chinese rock n' roll Cui Jian, Taiwan pop icon Lo Ta-yu and composer Tan Dun.

Cui and Lo are popular among young people. But few know Cui played the trumpet before he turned to rock, while Lo played piano and guitar.

Yu is a conductor, and his wife Vera Xu is an established violinist. But when they invite their 15-year-old daughter to concerts, the girl usually frowns and declines. But when Yu told her the concert will be staged in Sanlitun, she agreed to go.

Every fall, when I go into full swing to report on the BMF, my husband would always splash cold water on me , metaphorically speaking , and shrug and ask: How many people on the planet know about your boring festival except the organizers and you?

But one day, a few weeks ago, he returned home and excitedly informed me: Hey! The Beijing Music Festival will run in Sanlitun Vil-lage. I saw the posters there. Will you get tickets?

Contact the writer at chenjie@chinadaily.com.cn