French composer to feature at festival

Forbidden City concert to mark 100 years since death of Charles Camille Saint-Saens will also feature Chinese works, Chen Nan reports.

With this year marking the centennial of the death of French composer Charles Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921), a concert featuring his works is being staged during the Beijing Music Festival at the Forbidden City Concert Hall.

Under the baton of conductor Jing Huan, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra will, on Monday, perform music pieces by Saint-Saens, including Violin Concerto No 3 in B Minor, Op 61 and Violin Concerto No 2 in C Major, Op 58.

Chinese violinist Liu Ming, 25, a new concertmaster of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, will perform Violin Concerto No 3 in B Minor, Op 61, a piece Saint-Saens composed at the age of 45 in 1880.

Violinist Vera Tsu Weiling, who is a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, will play Violin Concerto No 2 in C Major, Op 58.

During the concert, composer Chen Qigang's two music pieces, symphonic overture Instants d'un Opera de Pekin (Moments from a Peking Opera) and Itineraire d'une Illusion (Itinerary of an Illusion), will also be performed. It will create a musical dialogue between Chen, a Shanghai-born composer, who studied classical music in Paris and lived in France for decades, and Saint-Saens, a major musical figure of the Romantic era.