Gary Graffman

Beijing International Music Festival, an annual cultural event in Beijing's calendar, is known for its continued efforts in promoting classical music. And the preparation for its 12th event officially stepped up on Tuesday.

Opening on October 10th, the festival will run for one month with twenty-one scheduled classical performances by musicians and orchestras from the US, Finland, Germany and Australia.

This year's center-piece, opera 'Macbeth', produced by Finland's Savonlinna Opera Festival, will be the opening performance of the classical music events. Opera 'Macbeth', based on Shakespeare's namesake tragedy, was composed by Italian music great Verdi.

Leading the lineup are star musicians including world-renowned pianists Gary Graffman, Vladimir Ashkenazy and popular young violinist Sarah Chang. Gary Graffman is known to Chinese audiences for training Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

The headline performance for the closing ceremony will be a commemorative concert for the 30th anniversary of Oscar-winning documentary 'From Mao to Mozart'. Filmed by biopic director Allan Miller, the documentary tracked the 1979 China tour of Isaac Stern - the first Western violin master to ever visit China.

(CRI June 18, 2009)