Tales from Beijing - China Now Music Festival at Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall

The first concert program of China Now Music Festival, Tales from Beijing, will be performed on October 7 at Bards Fisher Center and on October 9 at the Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center. The concert will open with "Hutongs of Peking" by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918, and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, "Hutongs of Peking" is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijings ancient alleywaysmorning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drumsbefore finally transporting us back to the tranquility of the ancient city. This will be followed by four selections from the opera "Rickshaw Boy," specifically chosen and adapted by the composer Guo Wenjing for this concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi, sung by Yi Li, and Huniu, sung by Manli Deng. In the concerts second half, we will hear composer Ye Xiaogangs Symphony No. 2, "The Great Wall." This large-scale work for piano, voice, Chinese instruments, and symphony orchestra is inspired by the idea of the Great Wall as a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western region of China. The symphony is intended to create a deep and broad soundscape that spans time and space and will feature a young pianist from Juilliard, Xiaofu Ju, with renowned New Yorkbased soloists on erhu,pipa, dizi and morin khuur (horse-head fiddle). The China Now Music Festival is dedicated to promoting an understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. This years festival, from October 7 to 22, will celebrate its fifth anniversary with an unprecedented program featuring three uniquely curated concerts that will trace how generations of artists from China and the West have influenced and inspired each other through musical expression.Our theme, East of West, seeks to reveal differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from Westonly to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both East and West, says China Now Music Festival Artistic Director Jindong Cai.https://www.barduschinamusic.org/east-of-west