Celebrated soprano from Xinjiang to give Women's Day concert

Soprano Dilber Yunus will give a concert March 8 along with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Zheng Xiaoying at Beijing's Forbidden City Concert Hall.

The 60-year-old soprano, a Kashgar native from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has achieved success overseas, playing Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto and Lucia in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor over her three-decade career. She has been permanently signed by the National Opera House of Finland since 1988.

The renowned conductor Zheng, 88, is the former principal conductor of China National Opera House and the country's first female conductor.

In celebration of International Women's Day, Zheng will lead the orchestra to perform a new piece titled Yun Xiang Hua Xiang, which was composed by Chinese female composer Wang Danhong and features pipa player Zhang Hongyan.

The concert will open with a march dedicated to women written by Chinese female composer Yan Xiaoou. In 1995, Zheng led the Women's Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, which expanded into the first women's symphony orchestra in China, and performed the same piece for the opening of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

The concert will also include Scheherazade, a symphonic suite composed by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.