Under the baton

Munich Philharmonic Orchestra will present a concert at the opening of the Beijing Music Festival in October, led by Andris Poga. [Photo/China Daily]

Themed on late German composer Richard Strauss, this year's Beijing Music Festival will also celebrate the life of Chinese musician Huang Zi. Chen Jie reports.

Beijing holds quite a few cultural events throughout the year, but fans of classical music usually look forward to the month of October because of the Beijing Music Festival, an annual feature that helps bring to China the latest global productions.

The festival is fresh as it isn't about outdated Western artists' tours of China or unknown orchestras looking to make some easy money.

Last year, when it was the birth anniversaries of Italian opera master Giuseppe Verdi and German composer Richard Wagner, the festival presented many concerts to honor the musical giants - both were born in 1813.

This year, the festival will focus on the late German composer Richard Strauss.

Some 19 performances will be presented from October 9 to 31, including operas, symphonic concerts, chamber music, choir and children's concerts. There will be two operas and 16 orchestral works among significant works by the composer.

"Richard Strauss was the leading composer of the late Romantic and early Modern eras, representing German Romanticism after Richard Wagner," says Yu Long, founder and artistic director of the BMF. "But he is not known in China. Many Chinese even confuse him with 'waltz king' Johann Strauss II, the Austrian composer of light music."

Lorin Maazel was expected to direct the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra at the opening of the festival, but with Maazel's passing away on July 13, the task now falls on Andris Poga.

Poga, a Latvian composer and now the musical director for the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, won the top prize at the Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition in 2010.